The High Road
by Anesidora Nichole
Summary: Lily survives the attack on her family that Halloween night and Severus thinks this is his chance to make things right. He would worry about the Potter brat later. If only it were that simple . . . AU. Lily/Snape, mentions of Lily/James. Not fluffy.
1. Chapter 1

It had been a long night for Severus Snape. The aurors had apprehended him at the school and had led him off without much discretion. He remembered how smug they had been and felt angry. As if they hadn't spent the last few years being completely ineffective to the point that they were a joke both to the deatheaters and the people they were sworn to protect. He was made to floo through the fireplace in his quarters directly to one of the interrogation rooms deep in the Ministry. The two aurors followed quickly; a pretty young woman and a middle-aged rather non-descript man.

Severus sat down without being asked and quickly strategized how he would handle this. The aurors were listing his charges which included 'murder, torture, production of illicit potions, use of all three Unforgiveable Curses, and association with deatheaters.' They were all true, at some point, in the years since he had graduated from Hogwarts. If they were to administer Veritaserum, which they were within their rights to do if they felt he was not being cooperative, he would very likely spend the rest of his life in Azkaban if he did not receive the Kiss from the dementors.

Albus and he had talked about this eventuality several times since Severus had started spying for him. The headmaster had assured him that he would be well taken care of if ever confronted by the aurors. Severus had faith in Dumbledore's reach and that he was quite capable of pulling the appropriate strings to have Severus released. Still, the situation made him a bit nervous. Albus had been known to make sacrifices for the greater good; he was very focused on the big picture and Severus wasn't sure where he figured into that now that the Dark Lord was gone.

He decided that he would give them enough information so that they felt they were getting somewhere but not enough to overly incriminate himself. This went on for almost an hour and Severus was starting to feel extremely wore down, wondering how much longer he could play this game. He wanted to go home and sleep for as long as possible. He wanted to find out what had happened at Godric's Hollow. The aurors were vague about tonight's events and all he had heard before he was arrested were a few rumors.

The door to the room opened and in walked Alastor Moody who looked at him with obvious dislike which Severus returned whole-heartedly. "That'll be all. Apparently there has been some . . . extenuating circumstances. You're free to go. We'll be in touch, though, so don't get too comfortable."

Severus felt his lips curl up into a slight sneer and stood to go. He brushed past Moody without a word and made his way out of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He didn't see Albus in the busy foyer of the Ministry so he made his way out to the streets of London. Sure enough, the elderly man was standing with his hands folded behind his back, apparently lost in thought.

The younger man walked to stand beside the man he considered to be his mentor. He was dying to know what had transpired tonight but didn't want to appear overeager. Whenever the subject of Lily Evans came up, Albus would give him this sad little understanding smile and as a rule Severus found pity infuriating.

"I'm sorry I took so long getting here, Severus. As you can imagine, there has been much to attend to tonight."

"He's gone, then," it was a statement, not a question. The nearly constant burning on his forearm had ceased and the mark had lightened considerably though its outline could still be seen.

"It would appear so, yes."

Both men were silent for a long moment and then Severus prompted, "How?"

Albus sighed heavily and said, "I don't know. We may not know until Lily wakes up."

His heart did a little backflip; she was alive, then. Albus gave him a rather sharp look, "Severus, I must urge you to leave well enough alone. We do not yet know what effect the spell might have had on here. No one has ever survived the killing curse. Harry seems fine but we believe he only received the backlash of the curse. Just a theory, of course. Anyway, she's going to be grieving and trying to move forward and it would likely make things easier on her if you would stay away."

That little pitying smile, again, but there was a stern look in his eyes. Potter had died, then, and apparently Lily and her child had survived. Severus met his eyes and nodded his head, "You have my word, Albus. I will stay away."

It was not thirty minutes later that he was striding through an extremely busy St. Mungo's lobby. He delivered potions quite often here to supplement his income and it wasn't so unusual to see him there. Severus spotted Remus Lupin in one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs holding a toddler which he presumed was the young Potter. Lupin looked terrible; not only tired but somehow defeated. The toddler appeared to be throwing a tantrum and Severus couldn't help but sneer. Of course, as the only son of James Potter, the child must be spoiled rotten.

Lupin spotted him and his eyes narrowed suspiciously, but when he spoke it was in a civil enough tone, though loudly as to speak over the crying. "Snape. What brings you here?"

Of course, he knew very well why Severus had suddenly appeared at the hospital and the potion's master didn't bother to hide this fact, "Where is she?"

"In her hospital room. They won't really tell me anything." His voice was slightly dull. He was absently trying to rub comforting circles on the toddler's back who was twisting, trying to get off his lap. "I think they're going to take Harry away. The healers keep coming out here to check on us like I'm going to kidnap him or something. Sirius . . ."

Severus didn't have time for this and the crying was piercing through his skull and causing a migraine. He walked over to the healer's station and looked for a familiar face. He spotted Delilah Moore who he was familiar with and actually genuinely liked. She was the no nonsense type of woman and very talented at what she did. He was glad to know that she was involved in Lily's care.

"Miss Moore," he called. She smiled tiredly at him and approached, "I heard that Miss Ev . . . that is, Mrs. Potter, is here."

"Yes, yes. It seems that everyone has. I've turned away more reporters tonight than I can count. You would think that people would be a little more respectful to a woman who has suffered such tragic loss. Her whole life changed tonight."

"Do you think . . . Could you do me a favor? I'm just wondering if I could take a peek. I'm an old friend. I just want to give her my well-wishes."

"Well, really, we're not supposed to allow any visitors other than family right now. Dumbledore said . . ."

"She doesn't have any family," And as far as he was concerned, that was true.

"Well," Delilah hesitated. Then she smiled shyly and said, "She's really going to need a friend when she wakes up. Mr. Lupin has been here all night, but, well, he seems to be having a hard time of it. Come on, just a few minutes, then."

They entered the private room that they were keeping Lily in and Severus' breath hitched for a minute when he first laid eyes on her. She hadn't changed much in their years since Hogwarts, at least not in appearance. He was almost glad she was unconscious because he knew she would refuse to see him if she were not. He just needed a few moments of her time and he was sure he could make her understand. He was aware that it was his fault, of course, and that their friendship might have been salvageable had he not joined the death eaters and built quite a reputation for himself. Their paths had crossed a couple of times in the last few years and she had acted as though he didn't even exist.

If he could get her to talk to him, he would have to work hard to control his anger at her for doing this to herself. What was she thinking? In his opinion, it had been a bad move; she should have ran instead of standing to fight. She should have just apparated away, though he knew she had felt she couldn't abandon her family. Lily had always been fiercely loyal in that way. Severus was angry she had risked her life for people, quite frankly, who were not worth her sacrifice.

James Potter had not changed much in his opinion, despite what some people seemed to think, because Severus didn't believe people changed. He knew for a fact that he himself hadn't changed even when he switched sides. And what could her son end up being other than a miniature James Potter? Lily, he knew, was a _good_ person. The world needed her far more than the other members of her family. He was aware this was a harsh viewpoint but the war had taught him nothing if not the fact that life wasn't fair.

"Have you tried to wake her, yet?"

"Tomorrow. They're running brain scans right now. If there's any brain damage, we need to heal it while she's still out." Seeing the look Severus gave her, she hastened to add, "They've come back normal so far. She seems fine. It just seems to have put her in a deep sleep. It's unbelievable."

He nodded and they were both silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts about Lily Potter. The healer spoke again, "Oh, I just feel so sorry for her little boy, though. I had to call Child Welfare to at least take him for the night. He can't stay here. I don't like how people are looking at him. Hungry, you know? He's just a toddler and he's terrified."

"Lupin didn't want to take the boy?"

"Oh, yes, of course he did. But . . . "she blushed slightly. She was embarrassed by the archaic laws they had restricting werewolves. She had treated many of them in her years at the hospital and despised the fact that they were treated uniformly like criminals.

"Right," Severus was well aware of the laws, though they did not embarrass him or, indeed, even faze him. An idea suddenly dawned on him, "Miss Moore, would you like me to take the boy for the night? I could bring him back here tomorrow when his mother wakes."

"Oh, I don't know, Severus," she frowned at him.

"I could take him to Hogwarts with me," he had learned long ago that 'Hogwarts' was a magic word in the wizarding world, "He would not only have my protection but the protection of Headmaster Dumbledore. I don't think it's safe to just send him off with Child Welfare. The Ministry hasn't even begun rebuilding yet."

She bit her bottom lip and looked uncertain. She glanced at Lily who looked so frail and couldn't help but think the girl really would need a friend. "You'll take him straight to Hogwarts and return him straight away in the morning?"

"Yes. I'll owl you as soon as I get to the castle."

"Okay. Would you mind filling out some paperwork? Just a spelled contract that will automatically return the two of you here in the morning."

"Of course not."

Severus had a theory that Lily would be forced to talk to him if he had her son. She would at least have to be in his presence, for at least a moment, when he returned the boy. He would only need a few moments to explain everything to her and make her understand.

The paperwork was brief, requiring only a signature and a witness, and he went out to the waiting room to collect the child. Lupin was still sitting in the same place and the toddler had calmed down a little bit. He looked up as they approached and frowned at Severus. Miss Moore explained that Severus would be taking the child, just for tonight.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Remus said haltingly.

Severus was about to point out that no one cared what he thought, but Miss Moore was already saying, "I think it's nice of him to offer. Harry has had a long day and the last thing he needs is some hard makeshift bed at the Ministry while they try to sort this all out."

"He doesn't have the best reputation," Remus pointed out.

"Headmaster Dumbledore seems to trust him," said Miss Moore haughtily. She did not like to have her decisions questioned.

"Does Dumbledore know you're taking him?" Remus questioned Severus suspiciously.

"Well, I suppose he will once I get to the castle," Severus replied stiffly. He wasn't sure exactly how he would deal with that yet but figured he would cross that bridge later.

"Mr. Lupin, you've had a _long_ day. We all have. Why don't you go home and get some rest? Come back in the morning when Mrs. Potter is awake."

Remus was reluctant to hand Harry over to a man who he knew had hated James' guts, but he had limited options. Short of kidnapping Harry, it seemed inevitable to hand him over. And he really had no desire to go to Azkaban. Then again, maybe he and Sirius could share a cell. He let out a derisive laugh before he could stop himself and Miss Moore frowned at him. With a sigh, he stood and handed Severus the toddler he had spent the last few hours trying to comfort.

If Harry had been resistant to be held by Remus, he was absolutely defiant of being taken by Severus. He began to cry again, soft little sobs and reached back for Remus, grabbing his robes. Remus gently unclenched the child's hands from his robe which seemed to upset the child even more. Severus found his dislike of the child intensifying. He didn't particularly like very young children though he occasionally looked after Draco, Lucius and Narcissa's son, who was about Potter's age and the boy was admittedly difficult. He was confident he could make it through one night. It was already late. He would just put the child to bed and go to sleep himself.

"Does he have any of his things with him?"

"Hagrid didn't bring anything with him. I could swing by Godric's Hollow and get a couple of things and bring them to you if you want," It was a blatant attempt to get permission to check up on them.

"How kind, Lupin. No. I think we'll be fine for one night."

Miss Moore smiled at Severus and said, "You'll be transported back here at ten o'clock sharp."

Severus was nothing if not a man of opportunity and life had just presented him with the opportunity to set things right with Lily once and for all.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Harry has some preteen angst in this chapter which is, in my opinion, completely canon. And, no, Snape isn't a terrible person in this fic. He isn't evil and he isn't abusive but he is a bit of a jerk especially from Harry's perspective. Also, decided it'll be best to give the story of how Severus and Lily got together through flashbacks and the like which is why I skipped forward to Harry's first year at Hogwarts. Please review. Note, Sirius is not in Azkaban because upon waking Lily certainly would have revealed Pettigrew as the Secret Keeper.

Harry James Potter was very angry; he stormed up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door with all his might but he still didn't feel better. He looked around the room for something to take his anger out on but didn't find any suitable victims. Instead, he flopped down on his bed with a sigh and tried to take a few deep breaths. He _hated_ him. No, correction, he hated _them._ He felt a bit bad for that sentiment and again corrected himself to think that he didn't hate his mum. She was the only parent he had, in his book, and he loved her very much.

He was angry with her, though; that was what she had always taught him, "Harry, you might not like someone's actions and you might be angry with them but I don't want you to say that you hate anyone. Hate is a strong word and I don't want you to use it lightly."

He did hate Snape, though. Of that he was certain. Harry didn't feel guilty about this, however, because he was fairly certain the feeling was mutual.

The reason that he was angry with Lily was because she never took his side. She wouldn't listen to him when he tried to tell her about what an awful person Snape was; like the fact that he was mean and that he picked on Harry even when he was trying very hard to follow the rules and the fact that he didn't wash his hair nearly enough. Lily did seem willing, however, to listen to the never-ending list of faults Snape found with Harry. Also, she let Snape boss him around and made Harry listen to the man even though he was completely unreasonable.

Remus would listen to his complaints, though he always encouraged Harry to try to get along with his step-father. Sirius was the only person who seemed to _get_ it. He would listen to Harry's home life woes with a sympathetic nod of his head. That was what the most recent fight had been about. Tonight was one of the nights he was supposed to go visit his godfather and he'd been looking forward to it all week. A whole weekend free of Snape where he could do mostly what he wanted without being criticized. However, he had apparently committed some transgression tonight; he had been helping with dinner and Snape had snapped at Harry to use a cutting board and Harry had snapped at Snape to wash his hair. Snape had decided that Harry couldn't go visit Sirius tonight as punishment. Harry had loudly protested and looked at his mum for her support.

"Maybe tonight isn't the best night, Harry. You can go some other time."

"Uh, no. No, I can't," Harry told her angrily, "I start school in two weeks and I'll be there until the Christmas break."

"Maybe Sirius can take you to Diagon Alley next week to get your supplies? That would be fun, don't you think?" Lily really did try to mediate which mostly involved upholding Severus' authority while trying to make Harry see that _she_ was willing to compromise only if he would.

"You don't understand!" He was practically yelling at her now and she was giving him a disappointed look. Snape was giving him a warning look. Harry didn't care and then he'd done it.

He was a little ashamed of his actions though he would never admit to feeling that way. Although he was angry, admittedly the best way to express that had probably _not_ been to throw dinner on the floor, hot skillet and all. His mother had cried out and even Snape looked surprised to which Harry could only think 'good.' Snape had muttered something about him being a menace and had grounded him until school started. And Snape couldn't ground him like a normal person and confine him to his room where he could feel sorry for himself. No, Harry would spend the next two weeks enjoying the privilege of scrubbing cauldrons and taking inventory of ingredients all under the watchful eye of his step-father. As though he were capable of screwing up something as simple as cleaning out a cauldron. Just what he needed, more time with the git.

The thing was that he and Sirius had plans for tonight. A few times a year, they would go visit James Potter's grave in Godric's Hollow. James Potter was Harry's real father who had died when he was just a baby. He didn't remember him at all but by all accounts he had been popular and brave and good-looking. Harry didn't understand how his mum could go from being married to someone like that to being married to someone like _Snape_. She had tried to tell him, once, the story of how they had gotten together but Harry had cut her off after he found out they had been married only nine months after his father's death. How could she betray him like that? Lily had given him that smile that adults give children that said it was beyond the child's comprehension.

Lily had used to go with him to visit James but it had caused a lot of fights when Harry was younger and eventually she had stopped going though she encouraged her son to go. Harry hated when they fought. Well, really, it wasn't so much that he hated them fighting as he hated them fighting about _him_ which seemed to be their main point of conflict. He had asked Lily once how she could just not go visit his father and she had just smiled at him and brushed back his messy hair, "I don't need to go to the graveyard to remember your father."

So now he wouldn't be able to go there until Christmas break. It wasn't so much going to the graveyard as listening to Sirius reminiscing about his friendship with James. He had every story committed to memory, forever putting together a clearer picture of the man his father had been. Harry wondered if he explained to his mum why he wanted to go so bad she would change her mind and let him go. Unlikely, though, he thought; she would probably just take Snape's side.

Harry supposed that he was lucky that he hadn't been punished worse for an outburst like that. He'd certainly been spanked for a lot less; Snape made no sense sometimes and he had long since stopped trying to figure him out. He _hated_ being spanked and it certainly made him strive to follow the rules more than even scrubbing out cauldrons. It didn't really hurt that much, honestly, because Snape used a rather thin switch. It stung like hell but it was over quickly. Harry sometimes wished that he would leave a mark so that he would really have something to complain about. Maybe then his mum could see what an awful person he was. But Snape never hit him hard enough for that to happen.

No, the reason Harry hated it was because he always made an idiot out of himself. He usually started out putting on a brave front but usually ended up in tears. He didn't know why, but he was elven years old for crying out loud. It was humiliating to cry about a few swats. He had the vague idea that he really felt Snape hated him during these sessions but never let the thought fully form. He didn't care if Snape hated him. He didn't. Why would he when the feeling was completely mutual? Snape had never commented on the tears, if he even noticed, for which Harry was actually grateful. The last thing he wanted was to _talk_ about it with the man.

Harry was feeling calmer now that he had been in his room for a while which was his sanctuary. It wasn't particularly spacious but it fit his bed and a dresser and a desk. It was always a bit of a mess which Snape had given up on persuading him to clean as long as it didn't spill out into the rest of the house. He had a couple of novels piled on his desk and his broom leaning up against the wall in one of the corners. There were a couple of Quiddich posters on the walls and a picture of him mum and dad - the real one - on his bedside table. His favorite feature, however, was that the window overlooked a large field that gave way to a small cluster of trees that he had thought quite a grand forest when he was little.

He wasn't really looking forward to going to Hogwarts which he knew made him an anomaly for his age. He would miss his room, though, and his mum and Sirius and Remus. He would miss the few Muggle boys who he played kickball with out in the street during the summer. He wasn't sure he'd call them friends since all they did was play kickball and never talked about much aside from that, but they certainly helped pass the time. Worst of all was that his step-father was a professor there so it's not like they'd even get some time apart. Snape must be delighted that he would soon have a wealth of new things to criticize Harry about. He soon drifted off to sleep, thinking if only his _both_ his parents were still alive.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

It was the morning of his first day of school and he'd dressed in some of his better Muggle clothing which consisted of a dark blue shirt and pair of jeans. He and his mum had bickered pleasantly about the jeans. She thought he should wear something a bit nicer and he was thinking he didn't want to get beat up. Snape had taken the floo to the castle earlier that day so it was just him and Lily to eat breakfast together. Lily was more excited than he was and chattered happily about her first day at Hogwarts and how she still remembered it like it was yesterday.

They arrived at King's Cross a little too early but Lily suggested it might give him extra time to get to know the other kids on the train. She hugged him fiercely and kissed him on the cheek, "Harry, I know you're going to make me very proud. Now, I want you to listen to Severus and the other teachers and be a good boy, okay?"

"Yes, Mum."

Then she was gone and he was alone and he missed her already. He shook his head; it was too early to get homesick. He got in line to get on the train behind none other than Draco Malfoy. Malfoy turned his head ever so slightly to look at the other boy and said by way of greeting, "Potter."

"Malfoy. How was your summer?"

"Fine. Mother and I went to France on vacation for a week."

"Of course you did," Harry barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Malfoy was such a braggart.

"What about you? What did you do all summer?"

"Cleaned cauldrons," Harry said a little bitterly.

He could have sworn Malfoy had given him a pitying look. Malfoy was Snape's godson and knew better than anyone that Snape expected a lot. The boys were not friends; in fact, they didn't really get along. They had learned a long time ago, however, that it benefited them both to be civil to one another. The boys parted ways and Harry went to find somewhere to sit on the train.

Although he knew quite a few of the students already, he wasn't really involved in their little social groups. Luckily, he ran into Neville Longbottom who invited him to sit with him. Neville's parents, Alice and Frank Longbottom, were friends of his mum and the boys had gotten to know each other pretty well. They talked about what classes they were looking forward to and the teachers but were soon interrupted by the compartment door opening to reveal a gangly red headed boy.

"Can I sit in here? I thought I'd be able to sit with Fred and George, but they told me to get lost. Oh, hi, Neville."

"Hi, Ron. Sure, come on in. Harry, this is Ron Weasley. Ron, this is Harry Potter."

Ron glanced furtively at Harry and seemed considerably more interested in the other boy. Harry got this sometimes; although his mum was considerably more famous than he was, he still generated a lot of interest when he met strangers. He disliked the attention but offered the boy a smile anyway. It wasn't really any use to make enemies, especially when Ron was only naturally curious. Luckily, he didn't ask any embarrassing questions that Harry didn't know the answer to considering he had been little more than a toddler when his family had been attacked. The three boys chatted companionably and the train ride went by fairly quickly and was uneventful other than the appearance of a bushy-haired girl who was frantically looking for her bag that had gone missing.

"It had two of my school books in it and if I can't find it I don't know what I'll do tomorrow when classes start."

"Why didn't you have your school books in your trunk in the first place?" Ron asked with his mouth half full of chocolate frogs.

"I was trying to review what I read this summer. I wasn't sure how much time we would have tonight." This drew a blank look from both Neville and Ron, but Harry felt the corner of his lip twitch. Ravenclaw, definitely.

She was clearly Muggleborn and Harry had a pretty good idea who would have been messing with her stuff. It wasn't his job to babysit anyone, though, and he told her he was sorry but he hadn't heard anything. He felt sorry maybe twenty minutes after she left their compartment, though, and wondered if maybe he should have made more of an effort to help her. What kind of idiot Slytherin picked on a first year girl, Muggleborn or not?

They arrived at the castle and were led by the half-giant groundskeeper to boats that allowed for a grand view of the castle. They were greeted by Professor McGonagall when they finally got inside the castle. Harry was tired from the long train ride and was grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs. He had met McGonagall a handful of times as she worked with Snape and generally liked her. She was strict but fair which some people could stand to learn a lot from. She told them to wait there and disappeared into the Great Hall again, presumably to make some last moment preparations.

"Weasley," hissed a voice that Harry recognized all too well. He rolled his eyes; now _Malfoy_ was a menace, especially when he was bored. "Hey, Weasley. I think your robes might have belonged to my great grandfather when he went to Hogwarts."

Malfoy was petty and a bully, there was no doubt about that, but in Harry's opinion he was mostly harmless. He swore, though, that one of these days the other boy was going to get stomped into the ground. Weasley seemed to be a likely candidate from the way he was clenching his fists. He had let the insult get to him which was the first mistake when dealing with a Slytherin. Blood in the shark tank.

"Just because his robes aren't brand new doesn't mean anything. That's so superficial. Don't you have anything better to do?" It was the bushy-haired girl he had met on the train earlier. He reassessed her; Gryffindor, then? Ron looked more mortified that he had the slightly nerdy girl come to his rescue than he had been by the initial insult. Malfoy opened his mouth to retaliate, and Harry didn't need to be a mind reader to know it would have to do with her blood status. Luckily, McGonagall chose that moment to return.

"Come along, then, let's see where you'll all end up this year."

They filed into the Great Hall. Harry's eyes drifted to the table where the teachers sat long enough to note that Snape was ignoring him. For some reason this infuriated him but soon the sorting began and he tried to focus on that instead. The bushy-haired girl was indeed sorted into Gryffindor along with an extremely pleased Neville. Malfoy was sorted into Slytherin, no surprise there, and before Harry knew it his name was being called.

The hat was so big and floppy that it dropped over his eyes obscuring the view of his classmates. He knew it would speak to him, but still jumped a little bit when it finally did, "Harry Potter. Hm, yes, I remember both of your parents. Both Gryffindors, I believe."

Harry wouldn't mind being sorted into Gryffindor. Most of the person he had gotten on with during the train ride had been sorted there and he had a feeling that was where Ron was going considering his family's track record.

"Yes, Gryffindor is a great house, but I'm not sure how happy you would be there." Harry had a bad feeling all of a sudden. "I think you would find yourself with more ties in . . ."

"SLYTHERIN!"

Oh, perfect. Just bloody perfect. Snape was probably already inventing new house rules just for him. There was polite applause. Harry looked around for any of the people he had met on the train but all the faces kind of blurred together. He walked toward the Slytherin table and glanced, despite his best effort not to, back up at his step-father. Snape was most definitely looking at him now. When their eyes caught each other, Snape sneered a bit. Harry wondered if he could convince his mum to homeschool him.

He sat down next with the other first years in the Slytherin house and tried to look happy about the hat's selection. He didn't want to offend anyone on his first day at the school and knew that Slytherins could be touchy about house pride. Harry barely paid attention to the rest of the sorting and soon the table was laden with dishes.

Malfoy was buttering a piece of bread when they simultaneously happened to glance at each other. The blonde boy offered an ironic smile and said, "Congratulations, Potter."

"Thanks, Malfoy," Harry muttered.

"No problem." Malfoy looked far too delighted by the situation, "I bet the potions classroom will be absolutely _spotless_ this year."


	3. Chapter 3

The boy looked sullen after being sorted into Slytherin house, Severus noted with annoyance. Well, Harry had another thing coming if he thought Severus was any happier about the situation. He would need to write Lily like he had promised and tell her where her son had been sorted. Though he was sure the boy would have a complaint out to his mother as soon as humanly possible. She would probably think it was a _good_ thing, and tell her husband that it was the perfect opportunity for them to work out their differences. He loved Lily, but sometimes she could be very naive.

Severus had gotten very good at guessing what first years would be sorted in his house. Admittedly, Harry ending up in his house was a surprise because if forced to guess, Severus would have placed him in Gryffindor. The boy was too like the senior Potter to be placed anywhere else. He and Lily had been fighting a lot lately about the boy which definitely wasn't doing much to endear Harry to him. Lily had told him when they got married that she wanted someone who could be a father for Harry. The woman wanted nothing more than for them to be a family and she tried so hard; family dinners, family picnics, family game nights. He cringed at the last one; why couldn't she see it was torture for everyone? And there was nothing for an adult's self-esteem like being reduced to arguing with an eleven-year-old about the rules of gobstones. Lily had left these efforts in tears a few times, telling them to just 'forget it' for which both Harry and Severus blamed each other.

"Severus, you _have_ to try harder to get along with him. He's getting to that age where he's going to need a father figure."

"What do you propose I do, Lily? He doesn't like me. He doesn't even respect me. Am I just supposed to let him do whatever he wants? Run wild?"

"Well, it certainly wouldn't kill you to let a few things _go_ once in a while."

It would, though. He refused to let the child run his household and be openly disrespectful. Anyway, when he _did_ go easy on the child, it went unappreciated. Just like two weeks ago then the boy had thrown the whole dinner they had been making on the floor like a maniac. That should have earned him at least ten swats but Severus had tried to be understanding that he was upset about missing out on going over Black's and had just grounded him instead. The boy had proceeded to walk around the house for the next two weeks giving Severus death glares and refusing to talk to him directly.

Severus had lost his appetite and pushed the plate away that he had initially piled with food. Minerva, who was sitting next to him, smiled and said obnoxiously, "Severus, you must be happy to have Harry in your house. I must say I was thinking he might be with me this year considering that's where both of his parents were but I'm sure Lily will be very relieved to know you're looking out for him."

It wasn't her fault, really. Minerva didn't know the extent of the problems they had been having at home. Severus didn't talk to anyone about it though he supposed it would become evident when the boy inevitably disrespected him in class. He didn't have much faith in Harry's ability to control himself. Yes, the boy was the son of James Potter through and through with just enough of his mother's temperament to keep Snape from completely throttling him.

He realized Minerva was waiting for an answer and said, "Yes, I'm sure Lily will be very happy about it."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

The prefects had gathered everyone in the Slytherin Common Room as Severus instructed them to do every year. Really, the older students already knew what this was about, but Severus didn't think a reminder of his rules would hurt them. By seventh year, most of the students could recite his speech verbatim. He entered the room and waiting for the chatter to quiet as his students noticed him. When every single student was silent and looking at him, he began to speak.

"First of all, congratulation to our first years on being sorted into Slytherin. I'm sure you'll all have a successful first year and find your place here at Hogwarts within this house." Some of the first years beamed at him; as a rule, he tried to go easier on his first years just because it was more conductive to earning their trust. Young students, he noticed, tended to mistake his effort to better then as him being mean. "There are just a few rules that must be followed for all of us to get along. First and foremost, you are to show respect to every professor at Hogwarts. A lesson you all need to learn early in life is that you need to show respect for authority, whether you like that person of authority or not."

He glanced at Harry, thinking about giving him a pointed look, but the boy wasn't paying attention. More than that, he was purposefully not paying attention, sitting toward the back of the group with his back to Snape. Severus was tempted to call him out and make an example of him but changed his mind at the last moment. No, he wouldn't embarrass Harry publically because he knew this would make him a target in his own house. He didn't get along with the boy but he didn't want to make him a target of bullies either.

"Second rule, I do not tolerate bullying in my house. Not of your housemates and not of other students," He gave Draco a pointed look for this one. This was a hard rule to enforce as his students would almost always deny it and could get quite resentful when Severus didn't believe them, saying that he was just like the other professors.

"Third rule; curfew is at eight for first and second years, nine for third and fourth years, and ten for fifth, sixth, and seventh year students. I don't care if you go to bed, though 'I'm tired' isn't an excuse for not performing your best the next day, but you _will_ be in this common room by your designated time and you will not leave under any circumstances." He surveyed his students and they all seemed to understand. Just to be sure, he added, "I take all three rules very seriously and if you break any one of them you will be very unhappy. I have an endless amount of work in these dungeons that needs to be done and I assure you that in my detentions you will not be allowed to sit and stare at your wristwatch until we are finished."

Finally, he wrapped it up by saying, "There are other rules and for details feel free to approach your prefects. A good rule to follow is that if you wouldn't want me to find out about it, _don't_ do it. Dismissed. Oh, except for you, Harry. Come here." The boy looked at him and it was necessary to add, "Now."

Harry walked over to stand in front of his stepfather, "What do you want, Snape?"

"First of all, I want you to refer to me as 'professor' or 'sir' for as long as we are at this school. I called you up here since apparently you cannot participate in a group setting like a normal person and need to be personally informed of the rules."

"I heard you when you were telling everyone," the boy was clearly annoyed but so was Severus.

"So, that little display was simply to make a point?" Harry shrugged and Severus sighed, "Harry, I want to make it clear to you that just because we're at school doesn't mean the usual punishments at home don't apply. I'm going to try to be tolerant but if you won't show me respect and can't behave yourself, I will not hesitate to give you the switch."

Harry muttered something to himself and Severus said, "What was that?"

"I said _fine_. Can I go to my room now?"

Severus nodded and the boy fled up the stairs to his dormitory.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Severus really should have been going over his lesson plan for the next day but he didn't feel like it. He felt like a stiff drink which wasn't an urge he got very often anymore. His father had been a very mean drunk and Severus had avoided the stuff as a rule until he'd gotten heavily involved with the deatheaters. He wasn't a very nice person to begin with, he knew, and Narcissa Malfoy had assured him that alcohol definitely didn't improve him. It had been a form of self-medicating, Severus supposed, but one he had stopped when he had begun courting Lily. It wasn't safe to drink around her or her child when he still felt so much resentment for James Potter. He was afraid what might come spilling out; what he might say or do that would make Lily hate him again.

Besides, he couldn't get drunk at the castle because occasionally one of his students did have a problem in the middle of the night and come looking for him. He decided to go to bed early, instead, and get up early the next day to work on his lesson plans. Despite thinking he might have trouble falling asleep - he usually did at the beginning of the school year without Lily there - but that wasn't the case and he was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

They had just moved into their new house last week and it was still a bit of a wreck because Lily hadn't decided where she wanted everything. Severus was looking after Harry while Lily was working at St. Mungo's. She had applied for the healer training program after that Halloween night and had just recently begun actually working the floors. Severus was very proud of her because she'd always been exceptionally bright and he was glad she was putting her skills to use. Unfortunately, this often left him and Harry alone together for long periods of time during the summer.

"Ask Black to take him," he had argued just this afternoon.

"He would love to, Sev, but he already had plans tonight. It's not going to hurt Harry to spend an evening with his stepfather."

She emphasized that word, trying to make Severus feel guilty for not being more invested in the child. It wasn't working and he was annoyed to be stuck with the child for the evening. Admittedly, the child wasn't that badly behaved even though he was clumsy and tended to get into things he shouldn't. But Harry made him uncomfortable. Lily had insisted since they started dating that Severus would get more comfortable with the little boy as time went on. That hadn't happened as of yet. And Severus went through the motions. He disciplined the boy, he bought him gifts on his birthday, and he'd even read him a bedtime story a couple of times. He had tried to _force _himself to care about the child. Well, that wasn't fair; he did care to some extent. He cared that he boy not come to harm and that he ate and had somewhere warm to sleep. But love was out of the question, it seemed.

Both of them were sitting on the sofa in the living room with Severus reading a professional journal pertaining to potions and Harry flipping through a picture book. For the past fifteen minutes, the boy had slowly been trying to encroach on Severus' personal space. At this point, Severus was flush against the arm of the sofa. The boy appeared to be trying to get into his lap which horrified him for a reason he couldn't explain or identify. Finally, he stood up and announced he was going to go make some tea. What was wrong with the boy? They never cuddled or hugged; Severus was not a very physically affectionate person.

Harry followed him out into the kitchen; he was about four at this time. He stood in the doorway watching Severus as he cast the spell to boil the water and got together the supplies to make tea. Severus looked at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. Lily would be home in less than an hour.

"Snape?" Harry spoke tentatively; the little boy could not for the life of him pronounce his first name so he and Lily had settled on his last name as an alternative.

"What?"

"I have a question, but I'm afraid you'll get mad."

Well, it was a safe bet considering Severus was already annoyed, but he said, "I won't get mad. You should never be afraid to ask a question."

Harry watched him for a moment and then nodded and said softly, "Are you my daddy?"

Severus nearly dropped the tea cup he was holding but managed to just barely save it. In a harsh voice, he snapped, "No!"

The little boy looked stricken and Severus regretted speaking so harshly to him. His heart was beating wildly, but in a calmer voice he said, "No, Harry. Your dad died when you were very young. You know that. Mummy has told you that."

Harry nodded and they were both silent for a moment and then Harry tried again, "But you're married to Mummy."

"Yes," Severus wondered if it would be totally unreasonable to go upstairs and lock himself in the bathroom until Lily got home.

"So . . . you're like my second daddy."

"No," Severus sighed and wondered how long the little boy had been thinking about this, "I'm just . . . I don't know, Harry. I'm just your Mum's husband. That's all."

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say because the little boy's eyes filled with tears. What was _wrong_ with the boy? He had Sirius and Remus who both seemed to adore him. Harry hardly needed Severus who had no idea how to be a father to someone. There was nothing he could give the boy save a roof over his head and clothes on his back. Still, it probably wasn't good that he had made Harry cry, and he went over to try to comfort the boy and maybe try to explain things a little better but Harry made a run for it. Severus followed him far enough to see him hobble up the steps and disappear into his room. Well, like hell was he going after him.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Severus woke up and checked the time. It was only four in the morning, apparently, and he cursed that brat for invading his dreams. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a dream but a memory. He would openly admit that was not his finest moment. Lily had not been happy with him when she got home but she was trying to pretend she wasn't angry. From the angry way she was unpacking her work bag, though, Severus could tell she wasn't pleased.

"He caught me off guard," he tried to explain.

"Severus," she took a deep breath and held up her hand. When she looked at him there was coldness in her eyes but she spoke very calmly, "If you don't feel it, you don't feel it. I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Severus had gotten to feeling a little guilty that night but couldn't think how to correct things. It was impossible to explain to a four-year-old the complicated situation. He vowed that he would talk to Harry about their relationship when he was a little older. He hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Severus sat up and decided he should get ready for the day since it was unlikely he would be able to get back to sleep. He quickly pulled on a pair of trousers and a shirt before putting on his robes. In the kitchen, a letter from Lily was waiting on the kitchen table. It must have been delivered the night before. He plucked it up and read the letter.

_Sev - _

_I'm glad to hear that Harry got there safely. You must be pleased that he was sorted into your house. I told you that the two of you are more alike than you think. Please remember that he's one of your snakes now. I know that even if you can't get along with him as your stepson, you'll learn to care about him as one of your own students. _

_Love,_

_Lily. _

He sighed and folded the parchment and stuck it in the pocket of his robes. While he made tea, he resolved to try to get along with the boy. It was a resolution that he'd made many time before. He wondered if it could survive through the first class with the child.


	4. Chapter 4

Seriously, why did Snape even have to talk to him? It's not like mum was there to make them talk to each other but Snape was still harassing Harry at every given opportunity. So, Harry hadn't been hanging on his every word. It didn't matter what the rules were because Harry knew he would be accused of breaking them even if he didn't. He found his way to his room and could tell immediately when he began unpacking his things that this would take some getting used to. Harry was an only child; not only did her have no siblings, but he didn't have any family his age that he was used to sharing with. Well, apparently he did have a Muggle cousin but he'd never met him so didn't tend to count him. He was used to having his own room, not to mentions bathroom since Snape refused to share one with Harry until he learned to pick up his soiled towels and not leave hair in the drain, and plenty of time to himself. It would be strange to have to share this small space with three other boys.

Harry had been roomed with Blaise Zabini - who he had seen a handful of times because Mrs. Zabini sometimes came to get potions from Snape - and Theodore Nott who he had never met before. Both boys seemed pretty decent, though Zabini wasn't particularly sociable. Of course, then there was Malfoy, who was the fourth occupant of the room. Somehow Harry wasn't surprised; the two boys had been being thrown together since they were very young. Lucius Malfoy was friends with his stepfather and Draco came to stay with them sometimes when his parents had business that didn't involve him.

Harry didn't like Lucius because he had once heard him call his mother a Mudblood when talking to Snape. Neither of the men had known he was there though he had been about to give himself away to leap out and yell at the man for using that nasty word about his mum. He was saved from the spanking that he probably would have gotten right then and there, though, because Snape had told Lucius in no uncertain terms to get out of his house and not come back until he could show Lily the respect she was due. It was one of the few times that he remembered admiring Snape and feeling like they were on the same side.

Draco shared his father's sentiments about muggleborns but for some reason seemed to get along very well with Lily. She was really nice to him, which was weird in Harry's mind, and would happily listen to him talk about his favorite Quiddich teams and weekend plans and sometimes even sent him home with freshly baked biscuits. The _really_ weird part was that Malfoy was nice right back at her. Malfoy wasn't nice to _anyone_, even his friends. It made Harry feel a twinge of jealousy sometimes because Malfoy had his own family. _Two _parents, in fact, the last time that Harry had checked.

One day he'd confronted his mum about it after Malfoy had left to go home, "Why are you so nice to him?"

"Who? Draco?" Harry nodded in the affirmative and Lily raised an eyebrow, "Is there a reason I shouldn't be nice to him?"

"Well . . ." Harry hesitated; he wasn't sure that he should tell her because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. Finally, he decided to just blurt it out, "His dad doesn't like you, you know."

To his surprise, Lily had laughed, "I might have heard something about that, yes. That's not Draco's fault, though. Look, Harry, I just don't think Draco has that great of a home life. Maybe we should both try to be nice to him."

"Mum," he said seriously, "He has a Quiddich pitch in his backyard. I think he's okay."

Her lips twitched at her son's conviction that someone who had their own Quiddich pitch could not possibly have any problems and she tried to explain, "Harry, having physical possessions doesn't really make people that happy in the long run. He doesn't get to see his parents very much. Lucius has a lot of business ventures that keep him busy and Narcissa . . . well, she has a lot of other interests that keep her occupied."

Harry realized that he had been staring at Malfoy who was now looking back at him with an irritated look on his face. Feeling his face turning red, he wondered how long he'd been staring while lost in thought. Malfoy said, "What are you looking at, Potter?"

"Nothing," Harry muttered. Though the other three boys had opted to leave their trunks for the morning, Malfoy was carefully unpacking his own. That was one good thing about having the blonde as a roommate, Harry supposed, he was very neat. Compulsively so. He'd been to his room in Malfoy Manor once where the books were all in alphabetical order and the clothes were organized by color. Snape thought maybe Harry could learn a thing or two from Malfoy and Harry thought that maybe Malfoy should see someone about that.

Harry went down to the shared bathroom to relieve himself and brush his teeth before bed and then changed into some of his more comfortable pajamas. He was more tired than he thought he would be and laid there in the relative silence of the bedroom punctuated only occasionally by Zabini turning a page in the book he was reading by way of an illumination charm. Harry was vaguely impressed. He knew the names of some spells, of course, but had never actually tried one yet. Closing the curtain on his bed for some privacy, he was left with his thoughts.

He knew his mum wouldn't mind him being in Slytherin and Remus probably wouldn't care one way or the other since he was all about tolerance and understanding. What about Sirius, though? His godfather had made it clear that he didn't care for the Slytherin house and a lot of his stories from school involved playing tricks on its members. Would Sirius be mad? Would he think Harry was not so like James after all? No, Harry decided. Sirius was not only his godfather but his friend and he wouldn't care about Harry's sorting.

Not for the first time, he wondered why his mum couldn't just have married Sirius. That would have made more sense, wouldn't it have? Sirius was James' best friend and he actually liked Harry. Why wouldn't she have turned to him for comfort rather than . . . _Snape_? They could have been quite a happy family, in Harry's opinion, and he fell asleep thinking about how much different his life would have been if his mum had married his godfather.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

The next morning, something hit Harry in the side and he opened his eyes and sat up. Someone had thrown a book at him, luckily one of their thinner ones. He groped on the bedside table for his glasses and put them on to find Malfoy glaring at him. Presumably he had been the one who threw the book.

"What the hell, Malfoy?"

"You snore," he said with obvious disgust. He was already dressed in his school uniform with hair that was slightly damp.

"I do not," Harry shot back.

"You do," Zabini chimed in seriously from where he was putting on his shoes.

"I'm afraid so," Nott added apologetically.

Harry looked at the three boys and said, "Okay, well, _sorry_. I'll put a silencing charm up after I learn one, I guess. Did you really wake me up to tell me I snore?"

"_No_." Malfoy said. "I woke you because if you don't start getting ready now, you're going to have to choose between breakfast and getting to class on time."

Harry grabbed his wristwatch from the bedside table which informed him it was seven fifteen which gave him forty-five minutes to shower, dress, eat, and find the Transfiguration classroom. He supposed it was nice of Malfoy to wake him up but couldn't help but note it wasn't with much time to spare when the blonde had clearly been up for a while.

He made quick work of his shower even though he would have liked to stand under the strong, warm water current for longer. Harry got dressed in his robes and combed his hair even though he couldn't really tell a difference before and after. By time he got to the Great Hall, the table was already thinning out with people leaving as he was arriving. He sat down and bolted down some eggs and toast and orange juice. Luckily, he didn't get too lost on his way to Transfiguration and arrived just as Professor McGonagall was getting ready to close the door.

"Ah, Mr. Potter. Just on time. Barely." She ushered him in and he sat down at one of the desks next to Nott.

They were turning a matchstick into a needle. Harry liked Transfiguration but found it very challenging and only managed to get his to turn a steely grey. Professor McGonagall assured him that it was a good start when she made her rounds to see the progress the students had made. Next he had charms where they had to try to levitate a feather which Harry did manage albeit only a few inches off the table. The bushy-haired girl, whose name was apparently Hermione Granger, managed to levitate hers clear to the ceiling.

There was a break after this during which Weasley approached him and asked him if he wanted to play Exploding Snape with him and Neville. Harry was pleased that apparently the boy - who had spent Charms going between staring at Harry and ignoring him, obviously torn - apparently didn't hate him for being sorted into Slytherin. After that he went to Defense Against the Dark Arts which sounded more exciting than it actually would. Or maybe it still would have been interesting if Harry hadn't developed a splitting headache soon after class begun.

He had planned to go to the Infirmary after class but his headache seemed to fade a bit once he got out into the hallways. Harry's last class of the day was potions which he was _not_ looking forward to because he _knew_ Snape was going to pick on him. He opted for a seat toward the back and tried to look busy looking for something in his bag. Snape barely glanced at him, though.

Snape gave a spiel - something about brewing glory and putting a stopper to death - and then they were to try to brew their first potion. Harry followed the instructions closely but when he finished the color was slightly off. He frowned down at the potion which stayed stubbornly the wrong color. Snape had already begun to make his rounds of the classroom and Harry decided there was nothing to be done about it now.

He felt Snape stop behind him and couldn't help himself from snapping, "I know it's wrong."

"It's . . . not bad. Do you know what you did wrong?" Harry glanced at Snape like he'd grown a second head.

"Uh, I think I might have stirred it too much." He said. Then, he admitted, "I lost count because I got distracted."

Snape nodded and looked for a moment like he might put a hand on Harry's shoulder which he thankfully seemed to think better of it because had he actually done so, Harry would have been convinced something was wrong. They had not spoken this civilly in a long time. Instead, Snape said, "Five points to Slytherin, then. For knowing what you did wrong."

Harry was glad to get out of the extremely weird potions class and felt a sort of freedom realizing he had the rest of the day to himself. He decided to take a walk out on the grounds to burn off some energy. About halfway through his walk, Harry happened upon Hermione Granger who was sitting alone under a tree reading a book. He felt kind of sorry for her because he knew that a lot of the Slytherins had been giving her a hard time. See, the problem was that she had been excelling in every single class and to most of the purebloods; it was unacceptable for a muggleborn to be outdoing them in nearly every subject. She went against nearly everything that they believed in.

He walked over to her and she glanced up a bit fearfully. Hermione relaxed when she saw it was only him but not completely. Harry asked, "Can I sit?"

She looked as though she thought it was a trick and he wondered if his mum had ever been picked on when she was in school for being a muggleborn. He doubted it and imagined that the Marauders probably wouldn't have allowed that to happen. He assured her, "I won't bother you. I just thought you might want some company."

"Okay." She smiled at him and moved her bag so that he could sit down next to her.

"You got your bag back."

"I had to pay a third year Slytherin for it. Thankfully I had some galleons in the bottom of my trunk."

"Oh. Sorry." A beat of silence, "What are you studying?"

"Oh!" She seemed pleased someone was taking an interest. "It's a treatise on the use of flobberworm in common household potions."

" . . . Cool." More silence but it didn't seem to bother Hermione who just looked relieved that someone was talking to her. Harry decided not to let it bother him, either. Who needed to be talking all the time? He pulled out his Transfiguration homework and they worked on their separate projects in companionable silence.

An owl swooped down and dropped a letter on Harry's book before swooping back into the sky. Harry recognized the brown barn owl as his mum's and happily opened the letter.

_Dear Harry, _

_I hope everything is going great on your first day of Hogwarts. I miss you something awful and Crisp hasn't left your bed since you left for school. I hope you're being nice to everyone and behaving yourself._

_I'm writing to let you know I'm going to make a trip to Hogsmede this weekend (Surprise!) and want to meet you and Severus for lunch. I want to hear _all_ about Hogwarts and your first week. Let Severus know and he can bring you down with him, okay? Meet me at the Three Broomsticks at 2:00. _

_Sorry for the short note. I ran home to write it; I'm on lunch break right now. I'm working almost every night but at least it's keeping me busy so I don't miss you two so much! _

_Love, _

_Lily. _

He smirked at the mention of Crisp who was their old, finicky cat who usually didn't want anything to do with him. He was glad that she was coming to visit but leave it to her to invite Snape along. Actually, the man had been unusually tolerable today, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Then again, maybe Snape would be doubly awful tomorrow. Maybe he would say Harry couldn't even come with him as punishment for some transgression he would no doubt commit.

Then he got an idea; he just wouldn't tell Snape. He could floo to see her anytime he wanted, anyway. How hard could it be to get to Hogsmede? He could practically see it from the castle. He crumpled up the letter and stuffed it in his bag. With a smile, he tipped his head back to let to weakening fall sun hit his face.

Life was good.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry was surprised by how quickly time went by at the school. Much quicker than at home and he found he enjoyed being around children his own age. He was spending a lot of time with Hermione who it turned out did have a sense of humor, albeit a dry one, and was probably the smartest person in their year which definitely wasn't hurting his marks when they had to work in teams. Of course, some of the other Slytherins were making fun of him for hanging around her with remarks ranging from 'well, you have to take into consideration the way he was raised' which rankled him to simple asking him where 'your Mudblood girlfriend is' which he thought was stupid. His roommates did not join in, he noticed, but they didn't exactly jump to his defense either. He was finding that house loyalty only extended so far.

Worse was the fact that it seemed to be making things worse for her, too. One day, when he overheard her defending him to a Gryffindor who apparently took issue with his house, he considered that maybe it wasn't the best idea to be friends with her. He really was trying to help her, though. He'd convinced Neville and Ron to let her join them in their now regular games of Exploding Snap and asked Neville to try to be nice to her. Of course, Neville was pretty much nice to everyone.

He'd tried to give her some advice, too, after the fifth time her hand shot up in Charms class to answer a question. He hissed, "Hermione."

She looked at him, completely oblivious, and whispered back, "What?"

"I'm not trying to be mean, but you look kind of like a know-it-all when you raise your hand for every single question."

She looked at him blankly, "But I know the answer."

"Yeah, I know, but . . . Everyone knows you're really smart, Hermione. You don't need to keep trying to prove it to them."

She had stopped trying to answer every single question after that though Harry sometimes caught her mouthing the answer to herself. He grinned at his new friend and wondered if he should invite her to visit this summer vacation. He knew his mum would like her.

Harry was getting headaches nearly every day around the same time and was missing so much Defense Against the Dark Arts that he was pretty sure Madame Pomfrey thought he was skipping class He vaguely wondered if he was allergic to something in the classroom. Luckily his grade wasn't suffering too much because Hermione was always there with her copious notes and willingness to recount the lecture nearly word for word.

No, if he was going to skip a class, it would definitely be potions because Snape was being undeniably weird. He had hardly yelled at Harry for the past week, though he had given him detention for being a few minutes late for curfew because he'd gotten lost, but even the detention had lacked Snape's usual edge. Whatever the older man was up to, Harry wished he would just stop and go back to normal. It was making him uncomfortable.

Things reached the peak of weirdness on Friday when the class was waiting outside the potions classroom for Snape to arrive. Snape kept the classroom door locked whenever class wasn't in session to discourage ingredients from going missing or illicit use of the room. Harry was leaning up against the cold stone wall next to Hermione waiting for the last bit of his headache to fade. He could see trouble coming because a couple of Slytherins were whispering and elbowing each other. He knew Hermione could see it coming, too, but she resolutely ignored them.

"Granger. Granger!" Called a stocky Slytherin boy. He looked annoyed when she ignored him and tried again, "Mudblood. Hey, Mudblood."

"Leave me alone," she snapped. Harry didn't know why she didn't just hex the lot of them and teach them a good lesson.

"That's not _nice_, Mudblood." Said a girl who Harry identified as Pansy Parkinson, a friend of Malfoy's. "That's not _polite._"

Harry drew his wand because, honestly, he'd been listening to this stuff all week. He'd take his detention just to wipe the smug look of their faces. The boy was ready, though, and fired off a hex before Harry managed to take aim. Unfortunately, the spell wasn't aimed at Harry but at Hermione who staggered when it hit her, causing her to drop her books. For a moment, the spell didn't seem to do anything but then Hermione let out a little cry and slapped at her leg.

"What -" Harry began but Hermione wasn't listening to him. She had begun to move around frantically, slapping at her own body and whimpering.

"Harry! Harry, get them off!"

Harry didn't know the counterspell, though. He wasn't even entirely sure what they had cast on her. "Hermione. Do you know the counterspell? Tell me so I can cast it."

She wasn't listening, though. She was shaking frantically trying to cast off whatever invisible being they had set on her. The Slytherins seemed to just find it hilarious. Harry was angry and embarrassed by his house all at the same time and was about to demand - at wandpoint - that they remove the hex. That was when Snape showed up. One minute he wasn't there and the next minute he appeared behind the laughing Slytherins as though he had literally popped out of thin air. Harry expected him to smirk or sneer, but he didn't. He didn't look happy at all. With a wave of his wand, Hermione collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily.

"Who?" He demanded in his quiet, silky voice. No one answered, of course, but simply stared at him. "I assure you that if someone does not want to come forward, I will not hesitate to check each of your wands."

Snape would, too. Of this, everyone was fairly certain, and then that person would be in twice the trouble for making Snape waste his time. So it was an extremely reluctant Slytherin who raised his hand. "Ah, Mr. Vaisey. A zero for the day, I think, and you can meet me in my office tonight to discuss rule number two that I mentioned the night of the Opening Feast."

Hermione's cheeks were tinged pink as she got to her feet and Harry knelt to help her gather her books together. She was unusually quiet throughout class and Snape called her to stay after. Harry gathered his stuff a slowly as possible, wanting to overhear their conversation. Hermione said something Harry hadn't quite caught and he strained to hear.

"Why do you want to go home?" Snape asked.

Harry was surprised. He knew that things weren't exactly great for Hermione, but he had no idea that she was quite that miserable.

Hermione sighed and shifted from leg to leg before answering, "I just thought . . . I mean, I'm different in the Muggle world. I just thought I would fit in here. But apparently this isn't the right place for me, either. Everyone hates me. I was better off in the Muggle world where people just mostly ignored me."

"Miss Granger," Snape said sternly, "There is nothing wrong with being extraordinary. It is not unusual for people who are especially gifted to face some level of persecution."

Hermione blushed at being called 'extraordinary' and 'gifted.' Snape continued, "Now, I know it is difficult to deal with bullies and I'm going to give you something to help."

Snape rummaged around in his desk and found a sickle floating in the bottom one of the drawers. He tapped it with his wand and handed it to her. "If it ever gets out of hand again like it did today, just squeeze this really hard and I'll come try to help."

Hermione turned it over in her hand a couple of times and then said, "You don't have to do that, sir."

"As I said, it's getting out of hand. You should be learning; not constantly looking over your shoulder. Besides, it usually doesn't take more than two detentions with me to get my message across." Snape smirked, "Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"

Harry jumped and realized he had been blatantly listening and not even pretending to get his things together anymore. He muttered, "Right. Hermione, let's go. I wanted to take a walk around the lake. We're not going to have too many nice days left."

Hermione dropped the coin into the pocket of her skirt and left with Harry. They walked in silence for a while as Harry tried to sort things out. The look Snape had given Harry just before they left had suggested that his assistance had not only been for Hermione's benefit. This had two disturbing implications; one, Snape and been paying enough attention to notice that Hermione was Harry's friend and two, that Snape apparently cared that Harry cared that the girl was being bullied. The problem was that Snape sometimes went through these periods where he treated Harry decently and they were inevitably short-lived. Then Harry ended up feeling like an idiot for buying into it and believing that Snape might actually be able to stand him.

"I think he's kind of nice," Hermione admitted suddenly.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her, "No, he's not, Hermione. He did a nice thing. _One_ nice thing."

Hermione gave him a look that suggested she didn't really see the difference between being a nice person and doing one nice thing. Gryffindor.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Although Harry and Hermione had gotten close in the last week, Harry couldn't trust her to help him with his weekend plans. She was a bit of a stickler for the rules and Harry had too much at stake to risk her telling on him. He decided to recruit help from elsewhere and lurked in the boy's bathroom until Malfoy came out of the shower wrapped in a bathrobe.

"Malfoy."

"What?" He was throwing his towel in the bin which immediately made it disappear, supposedly to the laundry rooms.

"I need to talk to you."

"Fine. I'll meet you back at the room."

"No!" Malfoy gave him a weird look, "I don't want the others to hear."

"Potter, I'm not having a clandestine discussion in the boy's loo."

"Just shut up and listen for once, okay?" Malfoy sighed and raised his eyebrows expectantly. Harry knew that despite himself he was curious. "I need your help with something. It's really simple. If Snape asks you where I am tomorrow -."

Malfoy cut him off, "No."

"You didn't let me finish!"

"I'm not getting involved with your little scheme to outsmart Snape."

"Just say I'm with you!"

"Why would you be with me? We're not even friends and Snape knows it."

"Just _cover_ for me."

Malfoy turned to leave, "No means no, Potter."

Harry sighed dejectedly. He didn't know who else to ask and he didn't have anything to bribe Malfoy with. Money was laughable given the boy's inheritance probably filled more than one vault at Gringotts and Harry was pretty sure Malfoy didn't want to be his friend. Malfoy was looking at his pitiful expression and said, "What are you going to be doing tomorrow that you're not supposed to be doing?"

"Never mind."

"Tell me," Malfoy commanded, "Or I won't help you."

"You're not going to help me anyway."

"I might change my mind."

"You won't."

"Fine," he turned to leave again.

"Malfoy," Harry said, "I just want to go visit my mum. She's going to be in Hogsmede and I'm going to sneak down there to meet her."

He looked confused, "Why don't you just ask Snape to take you down there to visit her?"

"Because then he'll want to come," snapped Harry.

"Why don't you just _ask_ Snape if you could scrub the dungeon floor with your toothbrush? You'll get the same result."

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Yes," Malfoy said after a moment's pause, "But if he finds out, don't think I'll hesitate to throw you under the bus."

"I wouldn't expect any less."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Saturday, Harry woke up feeling confident and excited about his plans for the day. He dressed in some comfortable Muggle clothes and rummaged through his trunk. Finally he found the gift Sirius had given him the day he had taken him to Diagon Alley. It had belonged to his dad, and he had not had the opportunity to use it yet. Sirius had told him not to tell anyone that he had given it to him and Harry had kept his promise. He slipped it on and carefully picked his way through the busy hallways and out onto the grounds.

There were a lot of students out enjoying the nice weather. Harry hurriedly made his way in the direction of Hogsmede. He realized that he fully expected someone to stop him; for some sort of alarm to go off when he stepped outside the bounds of the castle. For him to be instantly transported into Snape's office where the man would be awaiting him with switch in hand. But none of that happened. It was almost too good to be true.

He took off the cloak once he was sure he was out of sight of the castle because it was getting warm. It was extremely quiet on the path to Hogsmede; almost oppressively so. The only sound was his feet against the path. It was perfect; though he was starting to get one of his headaches. He hoped it wouldn't last all the way through lunch with his mum and ruin their day together.

When Harry was suddenly completely robbed of his sight and hearing, he experienced an utter terror he had never known. It was complete sensory deprivation and it was horrible to suddenly be so cut off from his environment. He didn't know what happened; was it some sort of spell to make him stay put until someone from Hogwarts could come fetch him? The bodybind spell hit him from behind and he fell to the ground, unable to catch himself. Everything hurt. To his horror, he felt wetness on his face and realized they were tears. He had never been so frightened in his life.

He felt himself being moved magically and felt completely vulnerable. His head was pounding horribly and his body ached from where it had hit the ground. It was only a few terror filled moments until he was dropped in a heap on the ground. His eyesight and hearing returned as suddenly as if someone had removed a blindfold. He was in the woods and standing over him was Lucius Malfoy.

"Mr. Malfoy?" He said stupidly and for one wild moment he thought the man had saved him from his attacker. It only took him a second to put two and two together, though.

As much as he disliked Lucius Malfoy, it had never occurred to him the man would ever try to hurt him. He was a friend of Snape's; they had gone to his house for dinner and the man had bought him a gift every Christmas. He had known him for a long as he could remember. The man's face was not curled into an ugly look of hatred, though.

Lucius kicked him, none too gently, and Harry cried out, his hands instantly going up to nurse his injured side. The man spoke with unconcealed anger, "Oh, my. Where is your filthy Mudblood mother now?"

Harry opened his mouth to retaliate, but Lucius waved his wand and Harry found himself unable to move his jaw, "Now, now. An adult is talking."

"Make quick work of the boy, Malfoy." Harry whipped around to see Professor Quirrel watching the scene with cold indifference. Could today get any stranger? It suddenly occurred to him that they were going to hurt him; really hurt him if not kill him. He was strangely glad his jaw couldn't move because he feared he would beg for his life.

Lucius was apparently having too much fun to heed Quirrel, however, and looked for all the world like a cat that had finally captured a mouse.


	6. Chapter 6

Severus always graded papers on Saturday. He made rounds of the Slytherin Common Room and the grounds maybe three or four times but spent the rest of the time holed up in his office with a cup of tea grading essays and assignments. Although he knew that some teachers did not assign much homework the first week, he felt that it was important to jump right in and his students had considerable work the first week of classes. He had read the same poorly constructed sentence on Theodore Nott's paper six times and it annoyed him more every time he read it. In the wizarding world, education was largely the parents' responsibility until the child came to Hogwarts. He disliked the obvious signs in his students' work that said that responsibility had been neglected. His job was to teach them potions; not basic spelling and reading comprehension. The fact was that he was distracted from his work by the current situation with Harry.

He had made an effort to be nice this week; he had tried to be forgiving and actually look for things to praise Harry about. Lily would have been proud, he thought. But the boy wasn't responding the way that he had hoped. Indeed, the child seemed to be avoiding him more than ever. He didn't know what to do to fix the problem though he supposed it was difficult to build trust overnight. Maybe he should sit down with the boy and they could have a frank discussion; tell the child he could be honest without fear of being punished. Lily would probably have to play referee. He would have to ask her if she thought it was a good idea.

He'd even helped the Granger girl who Harry seemed to be making good friends with. If not for her friendship with his stepson, he probably wouldn't have paid her much attention. She was bright, yes; exceptionally so and seemed to take an interest in potions. However, by all accounts she took a great interest in all of her subjects. If she had showed a special interest in potions in a couple of years, he might have started to pay her more attention. He was glad his attention had been drawn to the girl though who was apparently being treated quite poorly by her classmates.

Severus had very little tolerance for bullying; his own teenage years had been too miserable for him not to be aware of the possible effects it could have. The fact that it seemed to be largely because of her blood status was the icing on the cake. He was endlessly frustrated by the ideas that pureblood parents pawned off on their offspring. There was very little he could do to dissuade them from these ideas, however, without inciting the ire of their parents. The fact that he had believed it would earn him points with Harry had been an added bonus.

"Sev," A voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts; there was only one person who called him that. He looked over at the fireplace whose ashes now bore amazing resemblance to Lily, "Can I come through?"

"Of course," He stood up to go greet her, surprised by her appearance. She had been working so much lately they'd hardly had time to talk at all. She disappeared only to reappear seconds later in the flesh.

He kissed her, which she allowed, but she had a rather annoyed expression, "Sev, what are you doing?"

"Grading papers. That's what I always do on Saturdays. You know that."

She frowned, "Did you forget about me? Did you and Harry _both _forget about me? I know Hogwarts can be quite exciting, but we did make plans."

Severus frowned back, "I didn't make plans with you for this weekend."

"Of course we did. I sent Harry the letter at the beginning of the week."

"It's news to me."

It would be very unlike Harry to miss an opportunity to see his mother, no matter how much was going on at Hogwarts. The realization dawned on both of them nearly simultaneously. Severus was afraid of very little; he had seen horrors during the war that most people could not even imagine and was rather desensitized. Now, however, he felt his stomach clench and his heart started beating rather fast. But no, surely not. Even Harry, son of James Potter, could not be so reckless. So _stupid_.

Lily had gone pale at the idea that her son was missing, "We have to tell Dumbledore right away. Who knows how long he's been gone? Oh, Severus . . ."

"Now, let's not jump to conclusions, Lily. Let's check his dorm and see if he's there. He very well could have forgotten." He had done one sweep of the common room and tried to remember if he had seen Harry or not. He couldn't remember seeing the boy but he had assumed he was just out with his friends.

There was a horrible truth, however, that Harry would have run off. Lily had many admirers in the wizarding world and Severus would say that most people wished her and her son well. There were a lot of people, however, who had lost a lot when Voldemort had been destroyed. Severus and Lily had argued about whether or not to make Harry aware of the fact that some people may wish him harm, but had eventually decided not to scare the child. Lily had been so frightened directly after the end of the war. She had not let Harry out of her sight; did not trust him with anyone other than herself. Order members had escorted her nearly everywhere for nearly a month following the attack.

Severus quickly threw some floo powder in his fireplace and said, "Slytherin Common Room."

Lily was close behind him and they nearly ran to the first year dormitories.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Draco was lying on his bed eating a cauldron cake and reading a letter from his mother. It was rather vapid and superficial but he was still glad she had taken the time to write him. He had spent most of today in his dormitory because he figured the best way to help Potter was to avoid Snape altogether. While he prided himself in being a great liar, his skills seemed to falter around his head of house. Not that he was afraid of Snape; of course, he just liked his arse quite like it was, thank you very much. He had caught it way less than Harry did, but he had gotten in trouble like that a few times in his life and he had no desire to repeat it. He couldn't even complain to his father because then he was very likely to catch it twice if he did. And it hurt much more when Lucius did it as opposed to Snape.

He was reading about his mother's latest trouble with her garden when the door to his room burst open to reveal Snape and Lily. By the look on his godfather's face, he could tell they already knew something. He jumped up and put the bed between him and the two adults.

"Where is he?" Demanded Snape.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Draco tried, uncertainly.

Lily walked toward him, her eyes pleading, "Draco, if you know anything, anything at all, you have to tell me. Harry could be in danger."

He sighed and then looked at her sharply. Why was she even here? He said in a rush, "He was supposed to be meeting you for lunch. What are you doing here? He didn't make it to the three broomsticks?"

Lily didn't answer; she had already broken into a full run toward the Headmaster's office.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Harry tried to feel inconspicuously for his wand, though he didn't know how much use it would be against a fully trained wizard. Still, he would feel better to have it in his hands. It wasn't there; he didn't know if he had lost it or if it had been taken for it. Completely desperate, he tried to make a run for it but Lucius flicked his wand lazily and Harry was sent head over heels back into the middle of the clearing. Lucius smiled as though Harry's attempt to escape was too laughable to even be taken seriously.

"Snape will never forgive you if you hurt me," Harry tried, struggling to remind Lucius that he was friends with his stepfather.

"Ah, yes," Lucius actually looked a little remorseful, "I have thought about that. I must admit, I think Severus will be a little upset with me at first until he realizes the immense favor I have done him."

That stung. For all their problems, Harry had never really felt his place in the house was threatened. Did Snape really want him gone? His mum and, yes, even Snape to some extent had always made him feel that he had a place in the family. Even if that place often seemed to be in his room of in Snape's potion lab.

Lucius had crouched next to him and grabbed his arm in a vice grip. He was close enough that Harry could smell him and he really wished he would get his hands off him. Harry was quite sure the man was out of his right mind; who else other than someone not in their right mind would kidnap an eleven-year-old with the intention to hurt and possibly kill them.

"Do you know what really bothers me, Harry? Do you know what almost hurts my feelings?" He didn't wait for Harry to answer him, but gave him a little shake, "I was always very good to Severus. _I_ introduced him to the Dark Lord. _I_ introduced him to the pureblood world. He would have been _nothing_ without me."

Harry didn't know what Lucius was talking about but he had the idea that maybe if he kept him talking he could figure out a way to get out of this, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Lucius released him and stood up with a sigh. "It's not really your fault, of course. Just like it wasn't your father's fault, the poor bastard. It's all your mother. Your meddlesome mother. Do you know what she's like, Harry? She's like a particularly nasty disease. Infectious. She worms her way into a man's mind and pollutes it with all kinds of poisonous ideas. I'm said it before and I'll say it again, you mother always has been and always will be a social climbing whore."

Lucius was still very close to Harry who at this last statement kicked him in the shin as hard and he could. The man winced in pain and stumbled a little bit but recovered quickly. His face twisted in anger and he retaliated by kicking him back in his side. Harry gasped in pain and found that he was having trouble breathing now. Lucius shook his head, regaining his composure, "Do you see what you made me do?"

He turned to Quirrel, "My Lord, you know, I have never cast the cruciatius curse on one so young. I do wonder how it affects the spell. Do you think they break more quickly? Do you think the famous Harry Potter would last longer than most children his age?"

Lucius smiled cruelly, "Crucio."

Harry's skin felt like it was on fire and his muscles hurt, and he could feel the spell all the way in his bones. He had no idea how long he was under the spell; every second felt like an hour. He felt his body convulse involuntarily and felt as though he might throw up. Finally, Lucius released the spell and Harry rolled over and actually did throw up. The smell of his own sick made him continue to dry heave for a few moments. Lucius raised his wand again and Harry flinched, "Please don't."

"Crucio."

The boy fell back and arched his back against the ground. He looked so contorted that Lucius thought for a moment that he might break something. He didn't even hold this spell as long as he had the last one before the boy passed out, his body going limp but continuing to twitch even after he released the spell. Lucius frowned; the boy hadn't lasted very long at all. It was disappointing. He could 'enervate' the child but he caught Quirrel's impatient look that clearly said Lucius had had his fun and was to end it now.

He raised his wand to cast the killing curse when he heard a rustle in the woods. He frowned and turned his head slightly, distracted. A faint, hissing voice came from Quirrel's direction, "Kill him, kill him now!"

"Yes, my Lord." He raised his wand again but caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated; he wouldn't be the first person to go to Azkaban on a life sentence for doing the Dark Lord's bidding. Lucius Malfoy was concerned first and foremost with Lucius Malfoy's welfare. He'd barely escaped prison the first time by insisting he had been under the Imperius Curse. The Dark Lord was, as even he had admitted, weak. That was why he had needed Lucius' assistance in the first place. Quirrel couldn't risk his cover if they were to check his wand. Lucius began to suspect that he was a sacrificial lamb.

He raised his wand, looking for all the world like he was going to cast the curse before apparating.

"Lucius Malfoy," hissed an extremely displeased voice as Quirrel doubled over in pain before taking off into the woods.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

A full-scale search was launched immediately with Albus, Minerva, Lily, and Snape canvassing the area between Hogsmede and the Hogwarts grounds. Severus had an extremely bad feeling about what might have happened to Harry. He walked through the woods quickly, scanning the woods and straining to hear any tell-tale sounds. It was unlikely that anyone who took him would have forgotten to cast a silencing spell, but it didn't hurt to be alert. The woods gave way to a clearing in which he spotted his stepson laying in the most unnatural position. His heart caught in his throat and he hesitated to approach him. What if he wasn't breathing? What if he was dead?

He pulled together his courage and rushed over to the boy and was immensely relieved to find his chest still rising though his breathing sounded strained. He quickly cast a levitation charm and made his way to the castle as quickly as the thick undergrowth would allow.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Madame Pomfrey was working urgently on the boy. She spelled a potion into him to help repair the rib she suspected might be fractured and ran a diagnostic spell which showed tell-tale signs of having been under the effects of the cruciatus curse. The idea was repulsive; to use the spell on a child. There were many horrid things that Severus had done during the war, but he had never harmed a child. Lily was at the bedside holding onto his hand; she looked worried but there was something else there. A fury that was barely under her false calm composure. Severus hovered over the end of the bed, not sure of his place in the situation.

It wasn't long before Madame Pomfrey had to wake him from his sleep. He moaned and pulled his hand away from his mother, curling in on himself. Severus frowned; that was not a good sign. His eyes slowly flickered open and he looked around at the three adults surrounding his bed. He said softly, looking a little dazed, "What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Severus said.

Harry paused, frowning, "I don't remember. I remember leaving the castle and then . . ."

The boy put his head in his hands as though his head hurt. Madame Pomfrey explained, "He's been getting headaches even before today. I'll get a pain potion for him."

"Harry," Severus said, "Can I have your permission to use legilimency on you?"

"Why?" Harry's mother had tried to take his hand again, but he didn't seem to want to be touched.

"Sometimes even if a person cannot remember an event, an outside perspective can find clues."

Lily tried to rub his arm encouragingly but he scooted to the other side of the bed. She looked increasingly worried. Harry avoided looking at Severus and whispered, "Fine."

Severus connected with the boy slowly, which was usually more comfortable. The first thoughts he reached were powerful and angry. 'He hates me.' 'Hate _him_.' 'I'm just in the way.' The thoughts were so strong that he momentarily lost the connection. Lily frowned at him, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Severus snapped.

He formed the connection again, quickly pushing past the surface thoughts and trying to find the memory of the incident in the woods. It was extremely difficult to find specific thoughts and memories. People beginning legilimency often found it difficult to control the thoughts they received and were instead overwhelmed by a flood of information. He frowned. He couldn't find anything. He couldn't even find a jumbled memory that would be there if he had been obliviated. His probing for information produced blank, empty space. He broke the connection with a sigh.

Harry's face expressed discomfort. Interesting. It appeared that pursuing the memory was causing him actual physical pain. Very dark magic and very powerful. Perhaps even a new spell that someone had taken it upon themselves to develop. He shook his head in response to Lily's inquisitive stare. She looked frustrated. Madame Pomfrey returned with a potion that would ease the pain and also put him quickly to sleep. She then gestured for Lily and Severus to follow her into her office.

"I think it might be wise to take Harry home for a little bit." Madame Pomfrey said, "It doesn't appear there are any serious physical problems, but he seems jumpy. It might not hurt to have him talk to a Mind Mender. They might even be able to help him recover the memory."

Lily sighed, "I agree, but I'm working almost constantly right now. They're so short-staffed at the hospital. It will be difficult to get time off. I don't want him to be alone."

Severus said, "I might be able to get someone to substitute my classes for the week to help out at home."

Lily regarded him a bit coldly and was silent for a moment, "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Severus. I'll see if Sirius can help out."

It was only then that he realized her anger was directed at _him_.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Fair warning; character death in this chapter. I assure you, however, that it's not Severus, Lily, or Harry. I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Read and review, please! I love the feedback. Oh, and Tonks' timeline might be a little off, I realize this. I took the liberty of tweaking it.

Madame Pomfrey had decided that Harry should stay overnight in the Hospital Wing and then could go home in the morning. Harry didn't argue about going home because he was exhausted; his whole body ached and he found himself full of anxiety. He jumped every time someone came into the room which caused Madame Pomfrey to frown at him.

Harry had several visitors that night with Madame Pomfrey asking if he wanted to see each one of them. The first was Hermione who cried and wanted to hold his hand and he ended up comforting her more than she comforted him. The next was Ron and Neville who spoke lightly to him about the upcoming Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quiddich game. Malfoy showed up rather late in the day. When he first entered the room, Harry felt his gut tighten up inexplicably. There was just something about that flash of blonde hair and the way he held himself. Harry's head began to pound again.

Malfoy approached his bed, eyeing him uncertainly, " So, are you okay?"

"I don't know," Harry muttered honestly, "I feel all weird."

There was a beat of silence and then Harry asked, "Did you get in trouble for helping me?"

Malfoy shook his head and then added, "Well, your mother gave me a pretty good telling off and a speech about 'when to involve an adult.' I haven't seen Snape since this afternoon."

Malfoy had brought him a couple of cauldron cakes which his mother had apparently sent him in a care package. Harry was grateful since Madame Pomfrey had him on a rather bland diet even though he insisted his stomach was feeling better.

The last visitor that Harry had was Snape and Madame Pomfrey didn't ask Harry if he wanted to see him. Harry groaned, "Look, I know I have to be punished, but can it just wait?"

Snape frowned at him and was silent for a moment before saying, "That's not why I'm here. Although what you did was very foolish and you worried your mother. And . . . I was worried, too."

Harry looked away and didn't answer. Snape continued, "We need to talk. Not now because I know you're not feeling well but when you're better. Things are going to be different, Harry. They simply can't continue like they've been."

Harry decided he wouldn't give Snape the satisfaction of looking at him. Instead, he focused intently on looking at the ugly curtain that Madame Pomfrey had conjured to give him some privacy. Snape sighed and said, "Okay, then. Sirius will be here first thing in the morning to get you and your mother will get you from there later tomorrow night."

He got up and left silently and Harry spent a rather restless night waking up about every hour. He hated the dark Hospital Wing and the way the curtain obstructed his view of parts of the room and it was so _dark_. It was foolish, he told himself, to feel like someone could be hiding in the Hospital Wing but that didn't stop him from obsessively getting up to check behind the curtain.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Severus was up before dawn and sitting in the darkened living room lost in his thoughts. He knew he should go home and try to talk to Lily but the truth was that he was not looking forward to the row that awaited him there. He knew she was angry that he had let Harry come to danger when she trusted him to keep the boy safe. To keep _them_ safe. Her anger was intensified because she didn't know who had hurt her son and didn't have anywhere else to direct it. Severus was hoping she would cool off some before they talked.

He was more disturbed by recent events with the boy than he had let on. Those thoughts; surely the boy didn't think that he actually hated him. They didn't get along all the time, no, but Severus didn't hate the child. He couldn't hate anything that was such a part of Lily. Even more disturbing - and Severus would never admit this, even to Lily - was that the boy seemed to associate him primarily with punishment. Severus had felt the same way about his own father, and while he knew he was not anything like Tobias Snape who had terrorized Severus and his mother for much of his childhood, the fact that the feeling Harry had toward him were similar to those he had felt toward Tobias was a disturbing idea.

Lily and Severus had decided early on that Snape would be the primary disciplinarian simply because Lily's punishments were largely ineffective. Lily was extremely wishy-washy in her dealings with the boy largely because she felt bad for the child who had lost his father and suffered a trauma so early in life. She still spoiled the boy rotten as far as Severus was concerned. Still, he thought now that it might have been a mistake to put him in charge of that particular parenting task. The child clearly didn't trust him and Severus knew that without trust the kind of punishments he employed could do more harm than good. This was one of the reasons he went easier on his first years; it took time to build trust. Why was he able to see this for his students but not his own stepson?

Severus had a headache. He didn't know where to begin to fix all of this. Just then, there was a knock on the door to his chamber. He frowned and called, "Who's there?"

"Open up, Snape." That voice made Severus pull a face. He was not fond of aurors considering how he had been harassed following the war despite Dumbledore's insistence that he was innocent. He sighed; they probably would not be going away. He stood up and pulled open the door to reveal Alastor Moody and a young woman with blue and yellow hair. Severus stared at her for a moment before recognition dawned.

"Miss Tonks."

"You remember me." She smiled brightly at him and held up her auror badge for him to see.

"Oh, how could I forget?"

Nymphadora Tonks had possibly caused more potions accidents in his classroom than any other student he had ever had. She would come into the classroom with apparent mastery of the material but was hopelessly clumsy. The girl had been a menace but she put forth such an earnest effort that Severus almost felt bad for her. She had wanted to be an auror but it had been unlikely she would be able to get an O on her potions examination in order to qualify for his N.E.W.T level class. Sirius had asked Severus to do him a favor and tutor his cousin so she could qualify for her program. Severus had said no on principle. Lily had then asked him to do it for her and he had been forced to say yes. He had spent hours helping the girl come up with methods to contain her clumsiness and become more effective at making potions.

"Come in," Severus said reluctantly, moving to allow the two aurors to enter.

Moody led the way, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table, rubbing his bad leg absently. Tonks leaned up against the counter in the kitchen and Severus stood awkwardly, waiting for them to explain why they were here. Finally, Moody said, "There was a murder tonight."

Tonks rushed to add, before he could fly into a full-blown panic, "Not Lily. Don't worry, she's fine."

"But someone I know."

Moody nodded, "Lucius Malfoy was found murdered at his manor at approximately two o'clock this morning."

Severus stared at him with disbelief. That was impossible; Lucius was largely thought to be untouchable. He was arguably one of the most influential wizards currently alive, albeit his methods were not exactly always ethical, and almost certainly one of the richest. He managed, "Who?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Can you think of anyone who would want him dead? I know the two of you were friends." Moody sneered, an especially ugly expression on his gnarled face. The man viewed Severus' continued relationship with a former deatheater as proof of his guilt. Severus didn't both to explain that it was difficult to let go of friendships you had begun to nourish when you were little more than a child. Besides, he had believed that Lucius was remorseful, if only because he'd chosen the wrong side.

"I know plenty of people who would want him dead. Do I know anyone who actually has the reach to accomplish that? No."

"I was a very _strange_ murder," Moody commented, "Very grisly. Someone wasn't happy with him."

The man produced a stack of photographs of the crime scene and pushed them across the table to Severus. Reluctantly, he picked them up and gasped despite his resolve not to show too much emotion in front of Moody. They were barely recognizable as human remains. There were dismemberment spells, of course; very dark magic. But those usually looked very unnatural, contained the blood. There was blood _everywhere_ in the pictures. It looked like . . .

"It was done manually. Maybe with an axe." Moody said helpfully.

That was extremely unusual in the wizarding world. Typically, if a wizard was going to kill someone, there was a wealth of spells at their disposal. The most obvious was the killing curse, but there were others if the wizard wished to inflict pain. This spoke of an almost animalistic rage. Severus was disturbed.

"We suspect he was expecting an attack. The manor was very heavily warded. Did he express any concerns? Did he seem unusually paranoid lately?"

"I . . . haven't really talked to him recently. There has been a lot going on with my family lately." Moody scowled; apparently he had been hoping Severus would be able to shed some light on the situation. A thought occurred to Severus, "Is Narcissa okay?"

"A little shaken up. She found her husband when she got home from visiting a friend. She was physically unharmed, however."

Severus was relieved to hear that Draco at least still had his mother. "I'm sorry. I wish I could be of more help."

Moody grumbled, "Well, you'll let me know if you hear anything? Maybe you could ask around to some of your old associates."

Severus was loathe to do this, but said, "I'll see what I can do."

Moody proceeded to limp out the door, Tonks in tow who turned at the last moment to give him a little wave. Severus sighed as the door closed behind them. Telling Draco was technically a responsibility he could pawn off on the headmaster but that felt like a betrayal. As the boy's godfather, he felt that it was his responsibility to tell the child personally. He was not looking forward to it but decided he should get to the boy before the Daily Prophet came and word started to go around.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

As promised, Sirius arrived early the next morning for Harry. He had a quick word with Madame Pomfrey before helping his godson out of the hospital bed. Harry was a little wobbly on his legs, but Madame Pomfrey assured them that this was normal. They used the floo system to get to Sirius' flat in central London.

Sirius lived in a spacious flat that was tastefully decorated. As far as Harry knew, Sirius didn't really work though he never seemed short on money. He got the impression that the man had inherited a large sum from his family; he knew the Blacks were an old family. He heard voices from the kitchen and smiled.

"Tonks, I told you not to touch anything!"

"Oh, it's not a big deal. Just fix it with magic."

Harry and Sirius arrived in the kitchen to see Remus Lupin and Tonks bickering with each other over a couple of glasses that had apparently fallen on the floor. Remus looked up and warned, "Don't come in here. There's glass."

With a flick of Sirius' wand, the glasses were repaired and set themselves neatly on the shelf. Remus looked exasperated, but gave Harry a quick hug and looked him over presumably to make sure he was in one piece. Tonks gave him a bear hug that made him laugh but put him a little off balance. Sirius steadied him and Harry made his way to the stove where food was being prepared. He was rather relieved that Sirius had apparently recruited Remus to make breakfast. Sirius was really a dreadful cook; he had tried to make a few meals after Lily complained he was feeding Harry too much junk. The two had only tried a couple of bites before deciding that they would get take out and just not tell Lily.

Harry wondered if Sirius had broken it off with Katie, his latest girlfriend, because he didn't see her anywhere. Sirius seemed to have an endless parade of women in his life, all of whom were very nice to Harry, though he had learned not to get too attached to them. This was much to Lily's chagrin who thought he really needed to get married and settle down. She had tried setting her friend up a few times but Sirius had begged her to please stop and she had more or less given up.

Remus slid an omelet onto Harry's plate and everyone was soon settled in front of some food. Harry was very thankful for all of the company because it kept his mind off things. He loved the easy way that they talked to each other that he supposed could only come from knowing each other for a long time.

Harry asked, "So, have the two of you set a date for the wedding yet?"

Tonks sighed dramatically, "He's being impossible."

"You're the one who is determined for a spring wedding!"

"It's good luck! I don't see why we don't just get married this spring!"

"Because it's too soon."

"If we don't get married this spring, we have to wait an entire year."

"Or we could have a summer wedding."

"Do you _want_ our marriage to end in disaster?"

Remus rolled his eyes and threw his hands up, suggesting that it was Tonks who was impossible. Harry grinned into his orange juice; the pair was almost always bickering, though it seemed like a loving type of bickering, if that made any sense. Sirius was smiling, too, "Tonks, I didn't know you were superstitious."

"I'm not," Tonks protested, "I just don't believe in asking for trouble."

"Speaking of the wedding, has Andromeda come around yet?" Sirius asked.

Tonks huffed, "Don't even talk to me about my mother. She is so stubborn. Apparently I'm too young, stupid, and irresponsible to be married. Even though she was married even younger than I am now. And she's a coward. She won't come out and say what her real problem with the wedding is."

Harry gathered that it might be because Remus was a werewolf though he thought that was stupid because he was completely harmless. Sometimes Harry even forgot that Remus _was_ a werewolf because the only real tell-tale sign was that his arms sometimes got really hairy and he got kind of irritable around the full moon. He took some kind of potion that Snape grudgingly brewed every month that apparently made the transformation more comfortable. Remus had some scars on his arms and face but they were very faint and looked like they had happened a long time ago.

"All the more reason to wait on the wedding," Remus commented.

"Shut up, Remus," Tonks said pleasantly.

Harry felt himself drifting off at the table; his head began to droop before he awoke again, jerking it back up. Tonks was grinning at him, "Someone looks like they're really tired."

"I'm not," Harry protested, trying to focus his eyes.

All three adults laughed and Tonks and Remus decided it was time to go home and leave Harry to rest. Harry walked sleepily to the bedroom and he flopped down on the bed which was blissfully soft. He found himself shivering, however, and told Sirius, "I'm so cold."

"Madame Pomfrey said you might get chills," Sirius said, going out into the hallway to get a couple of extra blankets. He covered Harry up with three blankets and Harry felt the cold slowly seep out of his body.

"Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Sirius turned to leave and Harry sat up, suddenly panicked, "Wait."

Sirius paused and looked back at him. Harry felt stupid and childish but Sirius was probably the only person in the world to whom he would admit being afraid to be alone. Sirius nodded and said, "Scoot over. I'll stay here until you fall asleep."

Sirius sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. He smiled, "This takes me back. You had a lot of trouble sleeping when you were little."

"I had nightmares," Harry remembered.

"Yeah. Your mum was so worried that you remembered the attack."

They were silent for a moment and then Harry asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Do you think . . . Do you think dad would be mad at mum?"

Sirius frowned at him and said, "For what? Oh . . . wait, for marrying Snape?"

Harry nodded which Sirius felt rather than saw since the boy was buried in blankets and Sirius was sitting up higher than he was. Sirius sighed, "Oh, Harry. I really hope you're not fighting so much with him because you think you'd somehow be betraying James by getting along with him."

Harry said, "That's not it."

Sirius looked at him doubtfully and Harry corrected himself, "That's not completely it."

"Harry, if you dislike Snape because you don't think he's nice to you or you think he's too strict, that's fine and perfectly normal. But I don't ever want you to think that you're betraying your dad by moving forward. James and Snape didn't exactly get along, true, but I'm sure his first and foremost concern would be that you and your mum are happy and safe. I don't want you to make the same mistake I did."

"What do you mean?"

Sirius sighed and debated telling the child about it, "I was pretty unkind to your mum directly after your dad's death. I felt like she was betraying James by being friends with Severus. I said some pretty mean things and we didn't talk for almost a year. I really regret missing that year of her life and yours. In a lot of ways, Snape was your mother's only real friend after the war ended."

"I don't remember that," Harry said. As long as he could remember, Sirius had been there.

"Yeah, well, you were very young. Luckily your mum is one of the kindest people I've ever met and when I was ready to apologize, she was ready to accept."

"But you don't like Snape."

Sirius paused, "We're very different people. You have to understand that there are some things that happen between people that are very hard to get past."

"You don't understand, though. You don't know what it's like to live with someone who hates your guts."

Sirius chuckled and Harry frowned at him, "Sorry, Harry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just that if we're comparing horrible families, I'm pretty sure that I could beat you with my hands tied behind my back. And no one hates your guts."

Harry had never heard Sirius talk about his family. He was curious. "Why? Did you have a stepfather who hate - that is, didn't like you?"

"No," Sirius said, "My parents were quite unhappily married, thank you very much. But they weren't my biggest fans. Look, Harry, just try to get some sleep and think about what I said. Life is difficult enough without making it more difficult for yourself."

It didn't take long at all for Harry to fall asleep.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Lily smoothed her black dress in front of the mirror. She wasn't looking forward to going to Lucius' funeral, but it was a responsibility and she was never one to skirt responsibilities. It didn't help that she and Severus still weren't on the best terms, but he had asked her to come and she had agreed.

She frowned at her son who was laying on the couch staring into space. She was worried about him; he was very clingy and hadn't asked once when he would be able to go back to Hogwarts. It had been nearly a week and he didn't seem to be improving. Severus had made an appointment with a mindmenders for Monday and Lily was really hoping that they could help.

"Harry," she said gently, "We're going to be gone for a bit, but Remus is going to come sit with you. Okay?"

"Okay," Harry said simply. He seemed apathetic lately, too, which also bothered her.

She hadn't wanted Harry to go to the funeral because she was avoiding mentioning anything about violence or death that might disturb him. Lily had told him that Lucius had passed away though she had left out the fact that he had been murdered. Harry had roused a bit from his apathetic state in order to ask her if Draco was okay. Lily was secretly proud that her son was such a caring person and told him that Draco was fine, though Severus had told her the child wasn't coping well.

The funeral went by fairly quickly; there were a lot of people there. Lily wrapped her arms around Draco despite the fact that his mother was there. The few times Draco's parents had come to fetch him early from the Snape residence and he had been doing something with Lily, the boy had jumped up as though he was caught red-handed doing something wrong. It made Lily sad but she did not begrudge the child for it; she knew his parents' approval was extremely important to the boy. To her surprise, Draco squeezed her tightly back.

After the funeral there was a reception at the manor which she and Severus agreed they would only briefly attend. She saw Narcissa go into the kitchen and followed her to tell her that she and Severus really had to go in order to take care of Harry. To her surprise, Narcissa was hunkered over the sink with her shoulders shaking. Lily was surprised; Narcissa had been stony-faced through the whole funeral and Lily had assumed the woman wasn't too torn up about her husband's death because it was no secret that their marriage was one of convenience. It occurred to her now that that had been an unkind thought.

"Narcissa," she said gently. The woman jerked up and wiped quickly at her face. When she turned around, however, her mascara was a wreck and her face slightly puffy.

When she saw Lily, she suppressed a few sobs, scrunching up her face, "I'm a horrible person, Lily."

"No, you're not," Lily said automatically because that was what you were supposed to say.

"I am. The night he died, I was . . . well, I was out with someone I shouldn't have been. If I would have been home, I could have . . ." She broke into tears again.

Lily spoke firmly, "If you had been there, they likely would have killed you, too, and then Draco would be all alone. I know how hard it is, Narcissa, trust me. But you have to be strong for your son."

Narcissa nodded miserably; no one had really asked her to be strong before. She had always relied on others around her to be strong. She was all alone now and the only person who seemed to care was Severus' Muggleborn wife. She couldn't imagine that her life would ever be the same.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I'm not sure how well this chapter worked. Review?

"I don't want to go," Harry said for the umpteenth time. He was sitting on the floor where he was very slowly putting on his socks. Severus, on the other hand, was ready to walk out the door. This was a trick that the boy had done when he was very young and didn't want to go somewhere. Back then, Lily or Severus could 'help' him to move things along rather than letting him do it himself. Severus didn't think Harry would appreciate if he got down there and put his shoes on his feet for him, however.

"So you've stated," Severus said. "But you have to go and we're going to be late which is disrespectful to Mrs. Cannon whose time is quite valuable."

Harry looked up at him pleadingly, "We could just tell mum that I went. I'll start acting normal, I promise."

"You are clearly mistaking me for Black. Do I really need to spell your shoes on you?"

"No," Harry muttered, though he didn't move to put his shoes on.

Severus tried a different tact, "Mrs. Cannon is a very nice woman. I've seen her a couple of times myself, after the war. There's no shame in getting some help."

Harry looked up at him, "So, you know her?"

"Yes."

Harry jumped to his feet and made for the stairs, "That's it. I'm not going."

Severus watched the boy run up the stairs and disappear into his bedroom. The two of them had an uneasy truce the past few days which had done wonders to get him back in Lily's good graces. Of course, the child hadn't done anything to irritate Severus because he simply laid on the couch all day long. Severus looked at the clock on the wall which informed him that they were already running a few minutes late. He wondered if he should just firecall her to cancel and wait until Lily could be here. But just as he had realized he couldn't simply spank the child every time he misbehaved, he knew that he also couldn't simply make Lily handle every difficult situation.

The hospital was not being very understanding about Lily's problems with her son and her hours had hardly eased up at all. Albus had been considerably more understanding about the situation and had agreed that Severus could take a short leave of absence to help Lily deal with the fallout. Lily had accepted the help after Severus promised to be the adult in the situation. Harry had agreed it was okay if Severus stayed with him sometimes which he was eternally grateful for and figured was probably progress.

He sighed and walked up the steps, stopping in front of Harry's room which he rapped on with his knuckles. There was no answer, so Severus cracked the door and called, "Harry?"

The child was lying on his bed, on his stomach, with his face pointed away from his stepfather. Severus approached the bed and said, "Harry. I really think she'll be able to help you. You can't go on like this."

"I'm not going there just so she can tell you everything I say."

Severus almost told him to stop being paranoid, but held his tongue at the last moment. The fact was that the boy _had_ been paranoid in the last week and that would have been a rather unkind thing to say. It had been quite concerning that the boy wanted to sleep with his wand and Lily had caught him in the kitchen, staring out the window into the dark with his hands clutched so tight on the counter that his knuckles were white. Instead, he said, "She won't tell me anything, Harry. She's very professional and discreet. Besides, I wouldn't ask her; if you want me to know, I'm sure you would tell me yourself."

Harry turned his head to look at his stepfather, "You promise you won't ask her?"

"Yes, I promise."

The boy sighed and reluctantly got up off the bed and went downstairs to put his shoes on and Severus took his arm so they could apparate to the office of Rebecca Cannon. They checked in with a young man with tortoise shell glasses who was apparently her administrative assistant and sat down in the waiting room. Harry was sitting unusually close to him which was another odd habit that Lily and Severus had noticed he developed when they were out in public.

Rebecca Cannon was a woman in her mid-thirties with long, pin straight dark brown hair and sea glass green eyes. She wore a pantsuit and looked quite severe but had a bright and genuine smile. She greeted them warmly, "Severus! So good to see you again. And this must be Harry!"

Harry offered her a shy smile and got up to follow her into her office. Severus looked around for something to read, passing over the numerous copies of Witch Weekly and finally asking the young man at the desk if he could borrow his Daily Prophet.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Harry didn't like being alone with someone who he didn't know even though Snape apparently trusted her. He wouldn't admit this, however, and tried to gather his courage to follow her into her office. He sat down on the chair furthest from where she was perched and looked around the office. There were several awards on the wall for 'exceptional work' at St. Mungo's and a moving painting of a grassy field where the leaves on the trees seemed to be blowing in the wind.

"So, Harry," she said, "I'm Rebecca Cannon. You can call me Mrs. Cannon or Rebecca. Whichever you're more comfortable with. You must have a lot of questions about how this works."

"Yeah, I guess," Harry said hesitantly, "How exactly are you going to help me retrieve my memories?"

"I use a variety of methods from just asking you questions to actual manual reconstruction. This takes a lot of trust because, unlike Legilimency, I'm actually moving things around in there. So, I usually spend the first few sessions just getting to know you and letting you get to know me and then the real work begins. I should also tell you that while sessions such as these are usually private but I do have the reveal the identity of who attacked you and relevant details to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Okay," Harry said, looking down at his hands.

"So, tell me a little bit about yourself."

"Well . . . I'm eleven. I just started going to Hogwarts."

"How do you like it?"

"It's okay. I only got to go for a week before all this happened."

"Are you looking forward to going back?" Harry shrugged. "You seem pretty indifferent to returning to school."

Harry sighed, "Well, I guess I'm kind of sad that I missed the first Quiddich game of the season."

"You like Quiddich? What's your favorite team?"

"The Falmouth Falcons, I guess."

"They've had a good season this year."

"You follow Quiddich?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Well, no," she laughed. "But I have a son who does. I guess I absorbed that fact by way of osmosis."

Harry smiled a little bit at her and felt himself relaxing the slightest bit. She continued, "And you live with your mother and Severus, correct?"

"Yes."

"You kept your father's last name, though. That must be a very important connection to your past."

"Yeah, I guess. Not that I really had a say in the matter. I'm sure Snape wouldn't want anyone to mistake me for his child."

"Did he say that to you?"

"Didn't have to."

"Fair enough." She looked thoughtful but then smiled at him and said, "Tell me more about school. Have you made any friends?"

They talked for a while more, mostly with her asking questions as Harry didn't offer up much information spontaneously. Toward the end of the session, Harry asked her a question, "I just don't understand why I feel so scared all the time when I don't even remember what happened."

"I suspect that at least subconsciously, you're aware of the trauma. The particular curse you were under the influence of has long-lasting effects even on adults. Things will get better, though, Harry. It just takes time to feel safe again."

She escorted him back into the waiting room where Snape was flipping through a Daily Prophet. He looked up when the door opened and stood up so that they could leave. Rebecca smiled and said, "Okay, Harry, I'll see you later this week. It was very nice to meet you. Oh, and Severus? I wanted to mention to you that I do offer family counseling."

Harry looked mortified and Snape said, a bit coldly, "How nice."

"Just something to think about."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Severus was almost asleep when Lily came into the bedroom. She had finished her shift and then sat in the living room reading until Harry fell asleep. He was having a lot of trouble sleeping, and although he hadn't said he didn't like to be alone at night, Sirius had mentioned that he might have trouble with it right now. The child had also taken to sleeping on the couch in the living room rather than his room.

Lily sighed and began shedding her work clothes and changing into her pajamas. She looked exhausted. Severus rolled over to face her as she climbed into bed, "Did you get him to sleep?"

"Yes. He drifted off. I'm so worried about him, Severus. If I _ever_ find out who did this . . . Azkaban is too good for them."

Severus rubbed her back comfortingly and she buried her face in his chest. She said, "How did the appointment go with Rebecca? Harry said he thought she was nice."

"It seemed to go well. He was pretty reluctant to go at first, but I think he's a little more comfortable with the idea now." Severus said and then he added, "She actually suggested that Harry and I come see her together which I thought was a little out of bounds."

Lily looked up at him with her big green eyes and said, "What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. She told me to think about it."

"And what do you think about it?"

"Oh, Lily."

"Don't 'Lily' me. It might not be such a bad idea. If someone is willing to help . . ."

"We don't need her help."

"Well, nothing we're doing seems to be working. She might be able to provide a fresh perspective."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

They ended up with an appointment Wednesday with Harry's individual appointment on Friday. Though Lily had been able to convince Severus, she had a considerably harder time convincing Harry. They were still arguing about it the morning of the appointment. Severus was hiding in the kitchen as to stay out of the cross-fire, especially as the child seemed to think it was his doing.

"I'm not going just so he can use what I say against me! He'll probably punish me if I say anything he doesn't like what I have to say."

"I'm not going to punish you for being honest, Harry," Severus called from the kitchen.

"Maybe not, but you'll probably find something else to punish me for," Harry called back.

Severus rolled his eyes and took a sip of his tea that he was drinking. He secretly thought this was a stupid idea and that they should be focused on recovering Harry's memories but apparently he was the only person. Finally, Harry stormed into the kitchen, looking quite resentful, and Severus sat down his cup so they could apparate back to the office they had only left a couple of days ago.

They were quickly called into Rebecca's office which was set up slightly different than the last time Harry had been here. There was a round table in the middle of the room with three chairs. In the middle of the table was what Severus recognized to be a pensieve though Harry simply looked at it curiously. Severus had an increasingly bad feeling about this as he took one of the seats. Harry sat down, too, and took the final seat and clapped her hands, suggesting they should begin.

"I'm sure you're both wondering what I have planned for today. I have a method that I find to be extremely effective which involves objectively viewing memories."

"I don't see how that could possibly be helpful. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to dwell on the past."

"Well, we have to deal with the past before we can move on, Severus," Rebecca said. She didn't mention that she was quite aware of his tendency to avoid things that made him uncomfortable or misdirect his feelings. "Now, the first exercise that I want you to do is think of a particularly negative memory you have regarding each other."

"I have one," Harry said almost instantly. Severus glared at him; he was sure that the boy did. He took a moment to think and then nodded to affirm that he had thought of one as well.

"Okay, good." Rebecca said, "Severus, would you like to go first?"

He nodded and drew the fine, silver wisp that was a physical representation of his memory which he deposited in the pensieve. The three entered the pensieve one by one with Harry going first. They surveyed the scene which appeared to be Severus' potion room though apparently one of the shelves had fallen, causing several potions and ingredients to fall to the floor and mix together which had produced some interesting effects. An extremely displeased Severus was looking at the damage and the oozing mixture on the floor.

He had reacted badly to this, he remembered, actually calling the child a brat to his face. It hadn't at the time even occurred to him to ask the boy if he was okay until Lily had gotten home and it had been her first question. Rebecca said, unnecessarily, "Okay, Severus, why is this a particularly bad memory for you?"

"Because he did it on purpose!" Severus said hotly.

"I did not!" Harry protested.

"You did," Severus insisted. "Do you remember earlier that day? You were mad at me because I took you into the bathroom at Diagon Alley and spanked you because you throwing a holy fit because your mother had sent word ahead that she couldn't meet us for lunch and wouldn't be home until later that night? And you said I would be sorry? And that night, _this_."

Harry sputtered, "I was, like, six years old. I didn't even know what I was saying! Are you _still _holding a grudge about that? Are you trying to set a world record?"

Rebecca interjected, "What happened, Harry, from your perspective?"

"I was _trying_ to get my toy broom that he had taken away from me. I was going to run away," Both adults looked at him and he added, "Which probably wasn't that wise, but it wasn't like I did it with the intention to destroy your stuff."

"It took some doing to get in there," Severus commented, "I keep the door locked."

"You don't keep the window locked, though, and I was small enough to wriggle through it and the work table was under it. Easy."

Severus would be impressed by the obvious Slytherin nature of the boy if he wasn't so dumbfounded by his continuing ability to put himself in danger. Rebecca nodded, "Okay, let's move on to Harry's memory."

They exited the pensieve and Rebecca helped Harry extract his memory which they re-entered. Severus was standing, scowling at two boys who sat on his couch. He remembered this; they were about eight and one of the boys had gotten into Lily's herb garden that they used for Severus' potions and some of which she used for cooking. Both of the boys had presented their stories and after considering the history of both the children, Severus had opted to believe Draco and had punished Harry accordingly. Severus wasn't sure why this was such a terrible memory; he hadn't even been particularly hard on the boy in his opinion.

"Okay, Harry, why is this a particularly bad memory for you?" Rebecca asked.

"Because I really hadn't done it and he wouldn't listen to me!"

"All the evidence . . ." Severus began before Harry cut him off.

"It was Draco! Come on, he was framing the house elves for stealing sweets from the kitchens when he was three."

"So I may have been mistaken one time."

"It wasn't one time, though. You always take his side." Harry paused and then added, "You like him better than me."

"Draco isn't as difficult as you are," Severus said evasively.

"You're right," Harry snapped, "It's my fault you can't stand me. I'm just a horrible kid, right?"

"You're putting words in my mouth. In your view you should get special treatment because we're family."

"Ever hear of nepotism?"

"Well, that's a privileged attitude."

Rebecca cut in, "Okay, good. So, clearly, the two of you have not always considered the other side in difficult situations. Now, we'll come back to this, but now what I would like you to both do is come up with a particularly good memory."

This took both of them a little longer. Severus came up with his apparently before Harry did who was silently staring at his hands. Finally, Severus decided that the boy was trying to wait him out and told Rebecca, "I have one."

"Harry?"

"I guess I have one too."

"Okay, good. Harry would you like to go first this time?"

"Fine," Harry said and Rebecca again helped his to extract the memory.

At the last minute when they were preparing to enter the pensieve, Harry said, "Wait. I don't want him to see it."

"Why not?" Severus asked impatiently.

"Because you'll laugh and say I'm stupid for remembering that."

"I've never said you're stupid," Severus protested.

"Harry, would you feel more comfortable if Severus went first?" Rebecca asked.

Harry nodded and Severus sighed, extracting his own memories. When he placed them in the pensieve, however, he found himself hesitant to show them as well. He felt foolish. Deciding to just get it over with, Severus nodded and the three of them entered the memory. Harry was young, maybe five, and walked up to Severus very shyly with something held behind his back. Severus was eating breakfast. He had been expecting this because Lily had warned him the night before that Harry had spent a good portion of the day before making him a birthday card. Harry presented the card proudly and Severus accepted it.

"Wow, Harry, you did this all by yourself?" The card was a mess of glitter and almost indecipherable drawings. Harry nodded, looking up at Severus still a bit shyly. After a moment of uncertainty, Severus went ahead and ruffled the child's hopelessly messy hair, "Well, thank you very much."

Rebecca said, "Okay, Severus, would you tell me why this is a good memory for you?"

Severus stared at her; was she really going to make him discuss it? She waited, however, and he finally said, "I guess because we're getting along. I guess it made me feel good to make him feel proud of his work."

Severus really wished the ground would open up and swallow him. This was ridiculous; he was making a fool of himself. To his surprise, Harry looked upset, "Yeah, but he probably threw it out. He was just acting like that because mum told him to."

"I didn't throw it out," Severus snapped. He hadn't exactly displayed it because he'd been slightly embarrassed by the show of affection. He didn't know why but it always made him feel awkward when they had moments like that. In some ways, fighting was almost more comfortable. But he hadn't thrown the card out; he was pretty sure he still had it buried somewhere in his office.

Harry was still reluctant to show his memory, but grudgingly let them enter it. He looked away from the scene unfolding in front of them, standing with his arms crossed. Severus was sitting on the couch and Harry was working at a small desk. Although Lily had a very informal way of teaching the child his reading and writing, Severus preferred a more formal setting. In a lot of ways, it was the first time he had felt comfortable dealing with the boy because teacher was a role he was familiar with. Harry jumped up from his seat holding the problems Severus had written out for him. Severus checked over them quickly, basic addition, and smiled at the child when he saw they were all correct.

"Such a bright boy," he said happily, "You did a great job!"

"Harry, why is this a good memory for you?"

"Probably because he's not yelling at me or punishing me."

"Okay, fair enough. Any other reason?"

Harry sighed, "I guess because he was proud of me or whatever. I felt like I was actually doing something right."

They were soon seated back in her office, enduring an awkward silence. Severus still wasn't sure if he saw the point of all of this though he supposed that they had talked more in the past hour than probably in the last year. Rebecca said, "I noticed that your good memories were from quite a while ago. Do you have good memories that are more recent?"

The two were silent and Severus finally conceded, "Things have been worse lately."

"Was there a specific event that has made things get worse?"

"I think," Severus said, since Harry seemed determined not to speak to either of them, "that it has been a culmination of negative experiences."

Rebecca said, "Perhaps. I'm going to give the two of you a little homework for next week. I would like both of you to take the bad memory that you showed here and write how you wish you would have reacted and how you think it might have changed the outcome."

Severus recognized the irony of him being assigned homework. They said goodbye to Rebecca and apparated back to the house. Harry immediately climbed the stairs to his bedroom which was odd because of the child's recent resistance to being alone. Severus sighed and went into the living room, trying to push the situation to the back of his mind.


	9. Chapter 9

Severus had sat in the living room for a little while, attempting to make some progress on grading his papers. Minerva was covering his classes but he didn't like her method of grading so every evening a stack of papers arrived at his home like clockwork. He found himself hopelessly distracted, however, and went into his small home office. Although when he went in there he didn't have any conscious intention, he found himself looking for the card they had brought up during their session with Rebecca. It took about fifteen minutes, but he finally found it in his small metal filing cabinet.

The glitter had mostly fallen off but Severus smiled at the cauldron stickers. He flipped it open. In Lily's writing it said 'Happy Birthday!' and below it, Harry had written in block letters 'love Harry and Spice.' He'd misspelled both 'love' and 'Spice.' Severus was beginning to realize that he hadn't really tried to be the boy's father because he had known it would ultimately end in failure and he would be embarrassed for even trying. He could recognize that this was cowardly and lazy; he felt a bit hypocritical because he did not tolerate any signs of laziness in his students. He always told them that if they didn't do it right now, they would make even more work for themselves down the road. That certainly had proven the case in this situation.

His main excuse had always been that he hadn't had much of an example of how to be a father. Severus' childhood had been horrendous. Tobias Snape had been afraid of magic and he had been the type of man who had lashed out when he was afraid. Eileen Snape had been hopelessly weak and effectively cowed by the abuse she endured. Severus had been pretty young when he'd given up hope that his mother would stand up for herself. He'd essentially abandoned her and begun trying to spend as much time away from home as possible. When he was young, this had meant a lot of time with the Evans family. Lily's parents had been pretty good about him being there so often but he couldn't be there all the time. He'd gotten quite skilled at knowing when he had worn out his welcome.

So, there were times when he did have to return to the Snape household, and Tobias was always inevitably in a rage when he did return home. When Severus had gotten older, he'd learned how to make the man more hesitant in his beatings by playing on his fear of magic, but when he was young it had been pretty bad. There had been a couple of times that Mrs. Evans had actually called children's services, much to Severus' horror. Unfortunately, Eileen would always side with Tobias in order to save herself and tell the social worker that Severus was a very _difficult_ child, and he was picked on a lot by the neighborhood children, and she didn't know why he would make up such a story. And - in part, Severus was sure, because he had been a particularly homely child and quite bitter even at that age - they believed her.

This all wasn't really an excuse though. It wasn't Harry's fault that Severus himself had grown up in a loveless and abusive household. He didn't deserve to suffer for it; and Severus was starting to see that the child had indeed suffered. Severus heard the front door open and shut, "Sev? Harry?"

"I'm in the office, Lily," he called.

She appeared a few moments later in her healer uniform. Severus was struck again by how lucky he was to have her. For the first few months of their marriage he had woke expecting to find her gone and all of it a dream but she was always there in the morning. Lily, his Lily. The Lily he had loved since he was little more than a child. It occurred to him sometimes that he had benefited from the misfortune of James Potter and wondered if things would finally come to a bad end because of the way they had been brought together. He would say that most of the time, he didn't feel good enough for her and felt like their marriage must be a bit of a sham. It didn't seem possible to him that she could love him in return.

"What are you doing on the floor?" She asked, walking over to him.

"I was just looking through some papers." He said and then gestured for her to come closer. He grasped her wrist and pulled her down to the floor with him. She giggled and protested half-heartedly. He kissed her and said, "You know I love you, right?"

"I know, Sev," she said, and he supposed she had always known, "I love you, too."

There was a pause and then she said, "Sev, you want me to be happy, right?"

"Mm-hm," he said, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Well, I went to talk to my boss at work today again about cutting my hours. You would have been proud of me; I calmly presented my argument for why I should be allowed to move to part-time and pointed out my seniority."

"And what happened?"

"She told me that if I couldn't work the hours that I'd been initially hired on for then maybe I wasn't right for St. Mungo's."

"And you said?"

"That I had to discuss it with my wonderful husband, of course."

"Right. What did you really say?"

"I told her to shove her job." Severus looked exasperated and she rushed on, "They'd probably take me back if I apologized because they're desperate for healers, but I'm really hoping you'll say 'Lily, I completely understand why you want to be home with your son who you almost lost for the second time in his young life and I support you one hundred percent'. Besides, we have quite a bit in savings and maybe when things blow over with Harry, I could even open my own practice like I've always wanted."

It was true that they had quite a bit put away in savings as Severus was a naturally frugal person. Lily was technically a fairly rich woman but she and Severus had both agreed early on that her inheritance from James should be left for when Harry entered adulthood to help him get a head start. Severus sighed, "I do understand, Lily. We'll manage."

She smiled at him and stretched, saying, "How did the appointment with Rebecca go?"

Severus groaned, "The woman is a quack."

"I thought she was a genius when she helped you right after the war," Lily said, "A miracle worker. Sent straight from heaven."

"Shush. You've made your point," Severus said. "I just don't think what we did was very helpful. She had us reveal a bad and good memory in a pensieve and then describe why it was bad or good."

Lily said, "Well, I suppose it could help the two of you put yourselves in the other's shoes a little bit. What was your good memory?"

"The sessions are private," Severus said.

"Oh, come on, tell me."

Severus paused and then said, "Don't laugh."

"I won't." She promised.

He sighed and pulled the card out from the pile where he had stuffed it when he had heard her arrive home. She took it and grinned, "I had almost forgotten about this! Sev, I didn't know you were sentimental."

"I'm _not_," he said, "It's just that every time I was going to throw it away, it didn't feel like the right thing to do."

She flipped open the card and commented, "Love Harry."

"Yes, well, he was five."

"I think a five-year-old is quite capable of understanding love if not all the strings that are sometimes attached." She looked at him sadly. Then, thankfully, she changed the subject, "What was his?"

"Something from back when I was teaching him his math."

Lily nodded, "The two of you always worked well when you were teaching him. That was part of the reason that I thought things might improve when he went to school."

"We didn't really get much of a chance to see if your theory would hold true." He said; he tried to remember why he had ever stopped tutoring Harry. He supposed he had just gotten busy and started just giving the child workbooks to do that he would check after he went to bed.

Lily sighed and said, "Have you two eaten yet?"

Oh, right. He probably should have made dinner. He'd gotten too distracted and forgotten altogether about eating. Severus told her, "No. Not yet. He's been up in his room."

"Well, that has to be a good sign. At least he's getting better about being alone."

"I think he just really didn't want to be around me," Severus said dully.

Lily went on as if he hadn't spoken, "Maybe we can all have a late dinner. Do you want to go get something started while I get in the shower?"

Severus agreed and Lily disappeared out of the room to get in the shower. He stood up from the floor and went into the kitchen. He pulled some noodles and marinara sauce out of the cupboards as well as some fresh vegetable and ground beef for meatballs. He started the knives on chopping the vegetables and with a wave of his wand formed several meatballs. Soon, everything was cooking, and Severus was glad he'd gotten it done before Lily came back down. They did not work well together in the kitchen; Severus went about it rather like he would brew a potion, methodically. Meanwhile, Lily tended to do things all out of order, which drove Severus crazy.

The smell of food had apparently drawn Harry out of his sleep because he appeared a few moments later with his hair even messier than usual and still blinking away the sleep. It was only then that Severus realized he had made the boy's favorite without even really thinking about it. Harry asked, "Can I help?"

"Everything is pretty much on its way," Severus said, "But you can set the table if you want."

Harry fetched some plates and glasses from the cupboard as well as some silverware. He was done in a few moments, having done a sloppy job though Severus held his tongue, and reappeared in the kitchen. Severus felt the child watching him and turned around and raised his eyebrows inquisitively, "Yes?"

The boy looked away quickly and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. Severus turned back toward the stove, assuming that Harry had changed his mind about speaking to him. Harry walked over and stood beside him, looking at the food cooking on the stove, "So, I was just wondering if that's really a good memory for you. The thing you said when we were with Rebecca."

Severus glanced at him but he was steadfastly examining the boiling pasta. He was too tired to be evasive, "Yes."

Harry wrung his hands and Severus could tell he was having a hard time saying something. He began to tell him that they didn't have to talk about it, but Harry plunged on, "So, I don't really understand why it couldn't be like that all the time. I mean, apparently you were capable of being nice to me or whatever. So was it just too much work to pretend or what?"

He could hear the anger beginning to edge into the boy's voice. Severus sighed and ran a hand over his face, "I don't know, Harry. I made some mistakes, clearly, and I'm not denying that. I am sorry and if we had it to do over again, I think there are things I would have done differently. But unfortunately we only get one chance. And if you hate me for it, I think most people would find that understandable."

Harry paused, lifting the lid off one of the pots to look at the marinara sauce, before saying quietly, "I don't hate you. I just wish . . ."

He stopped as he heard footsteps on the stairs. Lily came into the kitchen in her pajamas with wet hair sticking to her face. Both Harry and Severus turned to look at her. She glanced between the two and said, "What?"

The three were soon eating dinner. Severus happened to look over and saw that Harry had a sizeable smear of tomato sauce on his cheek. He laughed causing Lily to glance at him. Severus explained, "He still can't eat spaghetti."

Harry looked up and protested, "There's nothing wrong with how I eat spaghetti."

Lily grinned and said, "I know when you were younger, Sev tried to convince me to forbid you from eating spaghetti."

"Why?" Harry licked at the spot of tomato sauce on his face causing Severus to toss a napkin at him. The boy picked it up sheepishly.

"Because you needed a bath every single time you ate it," Severus said, "And we found splotches of sauce in the dining room weeks afterward even after spelling it clean."

Harry actually smiled a little bit at him, albeit shyly, but the moment was broken by a rapping on the window. Severus stood up to let the owl it; it was a showy bird that dropped the letter on the counter before taking off again. He recognized it as one of the Malfoys' owls. He took the letter and opened it.

"What is it, Sev?" Lily asked.

"Narcissa wants to pay a visit tomorrow," Severus was bemused by the letter. The woman had a way that wasn't quite demanding to be seen but wasn't quite asking either. He noticed that Harry was frowning a little bit, his eyes having become a bit unfocused. "What's wrong, Harry?"

"Um, nothing." He pushed his chair away from the table. "Can I be excused?"

"You're finished already?" The boy usually had to be stopped from taking a third serving of his favorite food.

"Yes. I just don't feel good."

"Okay," Severus said and watched him disappear into the living room. He picked up the boy's plate and he and his wife exchanged a look.


	10. Chapter 10

Harry managed to make it to his room before he had a total meltdown. He leaned back against the door and sunk down to the floor. He was gasping for breath and shaking violently. It had all come rushing back to him at the mention of Narcissa Malfoy's name. A trigger had moved the floodgate and all the events of that night in the woods came rushing back. Worse was the fact that it wasn't like remembering what he ate for breakfast; it was like it was happening to him all over again. He experienced the terror he had felt and his skin prickled with the memory of the pain of the curse. Harry felt the betrayal and confusion of being hurt by someone who he, to some extent, trusted.

He didn't know how long it was until he began to calm down enough to be aware of his surroundings. He was alone in his bedroom which was thankfully not dark because he had left the lamp on earlier. More than anything, he wanted to run back downstairs and tell them what he had remembered. He wanted his mum to comfort him. Hell, he was so distraught that he would settle for Snape telling him it was okay. Something stopped him from returning to the downstairs, however. It had been a good night. Had it been his imagination or had they actually been getting along? Would Snape be mad that Harry accused his friend of hurting him? Would he even believe him? And what about Professor Quirrel? Surely the memory was in some way distorted because Headmaster Dumbledore would never hire someone who wished harm to his students.

There was no way he could deal with Snape calling him a liar. It was destroy the little bit of progress they had made. Snape might even hate him more than ever. Besides, Lucius was dead. It was not like they could arrest him for what he had done. It would just be causing strife for no reason. His mum used to tell him when he was younger not to go looking for problems where there were none. He could handle this by himself.

Harry stood up and made his way over to his bed and crawled under the covers, wrapping them tightly around himself. He couldn't understand why Mr. Malfoy would want to hurt him. In a bizarre way, it hurt his feelings. He wondered if Mrs. Malfoy knew that her husband had hurt him. Did Draco? Were they laughing at him? Did they think that he was pathetic? He shuddered and burrowed deeper into the bed.

The one good thing not remembering the events of that night had provided him with was the ability to sleep peacefully through the night. Aside from the night of the attack, he had found sleep to be a refuge from the anxiety of waking hours. This no longer seemed to be the case, however, and whenever he closed his eyes he was plagued by nightmares. He was relieved when the sun began coming up and he didn't have to lie in bed any longer being plagued by his memories of being tortured by someone who had once been a family friend.

By morning, he already had come up with a plan. So he waited in his room until he heard the shower turn on in his mum's and Severus' room followed by light footsteps down the stairs. That would be his mum getting up for the day, then. It wasn't long before a heavier set of footsteps followed which he identified to be Snape. Quiet as a mouse, he got out of bed and opened his door very slowly. He looked down the steps and down the hallway which told him the coast was clear. He could hear his mum and Snape moving around in the kitchen. Stepping lightly, he made his way quickly down the hallway to their room.

When he was little, they had kept the door to their room locked but they didn't bother so much anymore. He was aware he was risking the peace in the household by doing this but he was _doing_ it to try to preserve the peace of the household. He made his way into their bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He knew Snape kept a supply on hand because he himself had nightmares; he'd heard him talking about it with his mum before. After a little rummaging, he found a vial of Dreamless Sleep potion. Perfect. This was all he needed to be able to manage the memory of that night and keep everything from getting torn apart. He knew that the vial was an adult dose. He wasn't really sure what the child sized dose was but he figured he would just take half of the vial and see if it helped.

Quickly, he retraced his steps to his room and hid the vial in his dresser. He let out a little sigh of relief and then went down to breakfast.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Lily sipped on her tea and watched her son pushing his pancakes - which he had pulverized with his fork - around his plate. He had dark circles around his eyes under his glasses. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Severus watching him as well. They exchanged a look. Severus wordlessly went a picked up the boy's plate, apparently deciding that Harry had played with his food long enough. Harry didn't protest but simply sat down his fork and stifled a yawn.

"Having trouble sleeping, sweetie?" Lily asked.

Harry smiled at her, though it seemed forced and said, "No. I'm sleeping fine. Snape, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the park today."

Severus raised an eyebrow. The child had spoken with forced casualness but was avoiding eye contact with either of them. Lily hitched her chin at her husband and he cleared his throat, "Well, Narcissa and Draco are going to be here soon, but after that I don't see why not. Are you sure you're feeling up to leaving the house for that long?"

"Yeah," Harry said, "I'll be fine."

There was a knock on the front door and Lily stood up to let them in. She noticed her son tense up and put a hand on his shoulder, "Harry, it's just Narcissa and Draco. You knew they were coming."

It didn't seem to serve much to relax him, however, and he muttered something about needing to use the bathroom. She shook her head and opened the front door to reveal Narcissa and Draco. The woman looked very couth, as usual; Draco was looking a little more sullen than normal. Narcissa smiled brightly at her hostess. She was a far cry from the woman she had seen sobbing secretly over a sink only a few days previously.

"Hello Narcissa," Lily said politely. She offered a genuine smile to the little boy, "Draco. Are you doing okay?"

She moved aside to let them into the house and said to Narcissa, "I'll just leave you and Severus to visit. Should I take Draco to the kitchen? Maybe he'd like a hot chocolate?"

"Actually, Lily," Narcissa said. "I was hoping that you and I could talk. I thought we could go for tea - bit early for lunch, isn't it? - and I'm sure Severus is more than capable of watching the boys for an hour or two. Right, Severus?"

Lily was startled. She had always been very polite to both Narcissa and Lucius out of respect for Severus. They had an agreement that Lily would be nice to his friends and he would be nice to hers. Well, civil. Usually. She didn't particularly care for Narcissa, though. She disapproved of what Severus would call her 'lifestyle.' The woman was known to be unfaithful to her husband and while Lily sometimes joked about it to Severus - 'If I was married to Lucius, I think I might sleep around too' - she thought it would be extremely detrimental to her son once he became aware of what was going on.

She looked uncertainly at Severus who shrugged absently and then said, "Okay. It couldn't hurt, I suppose. Let me get a jacket."

They apparated to Diagon Alley where Narcissa led Lily to a small restaurant that she insisted served 'the best afternoon tea.' The two women got settled in front of their drinks and Narcissa smiled at Lily, "Well, this is nice."

"Yes," Lily said automatically.

Narcissa smiled and said, "Lionel invited me to visit him in Italy. He keeps a second home there where he spends a lot of the year."

Lily frowned, confused, "Who's Lionel?"

"My friend," her eyes grew slightly guarded.

"Oh, right." Lily said simply.

"Well, I might be spending quite a bit of time there. He's quite a close friend of mine. This winter for certain. He throws a grand party every winter. All of the major families attend." Narcissa rattled off some of the names of people who apparently attended this event, most of the names lost on Lily. She seemed to eventually realize this and said, "Anyway, I plan to attend and I was thinking that maybe you and Severus could take Draco for me for the winter break. I could have him stay at the school, of course, but that's so dreary . . ."

"Um, I guess," Lily said, "Are you sure that it's a good idea for you to leave him with us so soon after his father's death, though?"

"Oh, he just adores you and Severus," Narcissa said. She smiled and took a sip of her tea before adding, "I also thought that maybe you could look after him for part of the summer for me."

Lily frowned openly at her now, "Narcissa, Severus and I care about Draco, of course, but I don't think you're being rational. What about what we talked about at the wake? You have to be strong. Not run away from your problems."

"I'm not running away from my problems," she snapped.

"You have responsibilities."

"Lily, my entire life has been about responsibilities so don't _talk_ to me about responsibilities. I married Lucius when I was seventeen, _directly_ out of Hogwarts, and I doubt I would have finished there if educated women weren't very much the _thing_ then."

Lily wasn't unsympathetic; Severus had told her a few 'facts' from the pureblood world that had very much offended her sensibilities. As recently as ten years ago, pureblood women's value had hinged strictly on their ability to bear a son to carry on their husband's family name. The mentality wasn't entirely gone today. Still, Lily wasn't particularly moved, "Narcissa, when you have a child, they are your responsibility no matter how they came about."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, I'm not even asking you to take him for the whole summer. Is it money? I could write a check for you two to look after him."

Lily was offended, "_No_, it's not about _money_, Narcissa. It's about you needing to be there for your son when he has experienced a grievous loss."

Narcissa sneered, an ugly expression on a pretty face, "You. Are. One. To. Talk."

Lily's eyes narrowed, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, your first concern wasn't exactly honoring your husband's memory, was it?" Lily gave her a look that could have rivaled her current husband's feared glares, "I mean, clearly you've never been selfish, right? You've never put your son's happiness at risk."

Lily didn't trust herself to speak. She didn't know what might come out of her mouth. Instead, she dropped a galleon on the table to cover her tea and put her coat on. She then walked out the door. It had been her intention to go home but she was absolutely seething. She decided to walk up and down the Alley a few times to try to calm herself before returning to the house. She didn't want Draco to see how upset she was and Merlin forbid she should take out her anger at his mother on the child.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

"Draco, do you want to go to the park with me and Harry?"

"Yeah, I guess," said the blonde, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Severus nodded and went to find Harry. He knocked on the bathroom door but Harry apparently wasn't there. He went to his bedroom and nocked there. A few seconds later, it cracked open and a pair of green eyes peeked out at him. When he saw it was Severus, he opened the door a little wider, "Are they gone?"

"Narcissa went to tea with your mum. Draco is downstairs. Did you still want to go to the park?"

The boy looked torn, "Does he have to come?"

"I thought you and Draco were getting along a little better since school started."

Harry said, "We were, but . . ."

"But what?"

"Never mind," Harry sighed, "He can come."

Harry shut his bedroom door behind him and followed Severus down the stairs to the dining room where Draco was waiting. Draco greeted him, "Hey, Harry."

The other boy muttered something in response, avoiding looking at the blonde. Severus took both boys by the shoulder and apparated the three of them to the park. Highland Glades was a park frequented by witches and wizards with young children. Severus and Lily had taken Harry here a lot when he was little. There were long winding trails with grass that changed colors much to the delight of the children who played there. It was warded with a befuddlement charm to keep away Muggles as well as undesirable magical beasts. Severus figured the boys could walk and he could find an inconspicuous bench somewhere.

Severus found the park fairly full of people so it was rather difficult to find somewhere out of the way to sit. He ended up sitting next to an old woman who was watching two little girls play and holding a baby. She winked at him and he sighed, wondering if any adult actually enjoyed this kind of stuff. He had sent Draco and Harry off on a visible trail with instructions to stop where the trees got thicker and it would be difficult for Severus to see them.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Harry walked quietly beside Draco, wishing he could just be at home. He was sweating on the unusually warm autumn day and he didn't like how many people there were at the park. And he didn't like walking along side Draco who he had never quite realized bore such a striking resemblance to his father. He was aware Draco was talking to him but he wasn't really paying attention. Eventually, Draco became aware of this fact and put a hand on his arm to get his attention.

Harry jerked violently and snapped, "Don't touch me."

A multitude of emotions flickered across Draco's face; hurt, confusion, worry, and anger. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." Harry said sharply, "I just don't feel like being grabbed at."

"Whatever," Draco muttered, going to walk ahead of Harry.

Harry sighed; he knew he must look like such a freak to Draco acting like that. He felt very alone all of a sudden. Stuck with his secret that he couldn't tell anyone. Suddenly struck by the need to confide, he said, "Wait, Draco. Look, if I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"I won't tell anyone," said Draco, curious.

"I . . . well, I remember about that day. When I was attacked on the way to Hogsmede."

Draco's mouth dropped open, "You have to tell Snape and Lily. Are you crazy? There's some psychopath out there kidnapping people and torturing them!"

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "I don't think they'll believe me. They know the person."

"It doesn't matter who it is, Harry. What's wrong is wrong. Who hurt you?"

Harry started walking again and said, "You of all people wouldn't believe me."

"Try me," Draco jogged to catch up.

"Just forget it," Harry said.

Draco glared at him, "Look, I thought we were starting to get along. If you don't want to be friends, just _say_ so. I'm sure you and your Mudblood girlfriend will be very happy together. You are so -."

"Oh, my God. Draco, shut up. It was your _father_ okay?" Harry blurted out, angrily. He was so tired of people being mad at him when he hadn't done anything wrong.

The boys stood staring at each other silently for a moment and then Draco shoved Harry. Hard. Harry stumbled but managed to catch his balance. So, Draco didn't believe him. Of course not. He and Snape would probably have a good laugh about the stupid Harry Potter who was trying to make up a story to get out of therapy and get all the attention for himself. Draco's face had turned an unpleasant pink, "Take it back. Take it back _now_, Potter."

HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSS

Severus prided himself in being pretty good at sensing that trouble was coming. As head of the Slytherin house, he was skilled and knowing when there was plotting going on. He could predict what most of his students would do before they did it. It was largely believed by his student body that he could read their minds, but the fact was that Severus did not need to employ Legilimency to know what the Slytherin children were thinking.

However, when he heard yelling break out down the path, the last thing he expected to see was his godson and stepson both suspended in midair by a frazzled looking middle aged woman. Severus was shocked. Of course, fighting was against the rules in the Snape household, but it had rarely been one that they had needed to enforce. Harry simply wasn't given to getting into fights. It was equally surprising that Draco had gotten into a physical confrontation because while the boy could be petty - downright mean, if Severus was being honest - he usually went about getting his revenge in a sneakier manner as his size did not give to actually physical harassment.

"Do they belong to you?" Asked the frazzled looking witch, obviously annoyed that these unruly children were interrupting her nice day out with her family.

Severus ignored her and instead addressed the boys, "This nice lady is going to put the two of you down. If either of you so much as looks in the other one's direction, that person will be one sorry little boy."

The witch lowered the two children, both who were breathing heavily. Snape began to march them away from the crowd where they could apparate home when Draco decided it was a good day to test his godfather's limits. He gave Harry a little shove; not particularly hard, but hard enough to make the boy stumble. Severus had had enough.

"Draconis Abraxius Malfoy!"

The boy blanched at the use of his full name and Severus grabbed him by the arm and proceeded to march him to the public bathrooms that were located by the entrance to the park with Harry in tow. Draco protested, trying to pull away, "I didn't even push him that hard."

"What did I say, Draco? I said it was enough. You don't know when to stop."

Severus pointed to a bench near the bathroom and snapped at Harry, "Sit. Don't move a muscle."

One firm spanking later - during which Draco protested loudly enough that Snape thought he was rather lucky that no one called the authorities - Severus reemerged from the bathroom to find the bench he had told his stepson to occupy was empty. He scowled; one very simple instruction. Draco burst out of the bathroom behind him and said, "I'm going to tell Mother! I didn't even do anything. He started it!"

"I'll gladly find you the owl to send her the message," Snape snapped, though he was distracted. It was very unusual for Harry to hide from him, even if he was in trouble. Even the time that he had destroyed nearly half of Severus' potions supplies, he had met him at the front door informing him that he'd 'done something bad.'

The same frazzled looking witch said, "You're looking for the other boy? He took off that way at a full run."

"You didn't stop him?" Severus snapped.

The woman glared at him, as if to ask when his problem had become hers, "Like I said, he took off running."

Severus cursed and took off in the general direction that the woman had indicated, dragging the blonde child behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I am sooooo sorry about the long wait. I will be updating more regularly from this point forward. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. As always, a review is appreciated.

Severus couldn't help but wonder why this kept happening to him. This was the second time in as many weeks that the boy had run off on him. Holding Draco by the collar of his shirt - the last thing he needed was to lose them both - he half walked and half jogged in the direction the witch had indicated. As he got closer, he saw that someone was holding Harry by the shoulders. His hand moved instinctively towards his wand but several strides later he recognized the figure to be Sirius Black.

He'd never been happier to see the mangy mutt in his entire life.

Sirius, however, didn't look particularly happy to see him. He touched the child's face where a rather ugly bruise was forming. Clearly, Draco had won this particular fight. The other man's eyes were narrowed at Severus himself, however, and he asked, "What the hell is going on, Snape?"

Severus put together the accusation and snapped, rather insulted, "Oh, please spare me your accusing looks. These two idiots got into a fistfight and then this one ran off when I was dealing with Draco."

Sirius sighed and put his arm around Harry, gently scolding, "You can't run off, Harry. You of all people know that it's not safe. What did you get in a fight about? That's not at all like you."

Harry was silent, looking down at his feet, and Draco was silent, glaring at Harry. Severus said to break the tension lest the boys try to kill each other again, "What are you doing here, anyway, Black?"

"I'm here with Vanessa," he said, his arm still slung casually over the shoulders of his godson.

Severus frowned, "Who's Vanessa?"

"My lady friend."

"Ah," Severus said simply. He didn't keep up with the other man's 'lady friends.' He wasn't sure that Black even could keep them all straight. Severus glanced over at the abandoned 'Vanessa' who didn't look very happy.

"Hey, kiddo, do you want to come home with me for a little while?" Sirius asked Harry.

Harry nodded, then shook his head, and then shrugged. Severus wondered how one child could be so complicated. Severus interjected, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. I think I'll just take him home."

"Come on, Snape," Sirius said, "It'll give him some time to cool off while you take Draco home since clearly this outing is over."

After a moment of thought, Severus reluctantly nodded. It was a sensible solution. Sirius steered Harry over to Vanessa, apparently to tell her what was going on. Severus watched them go and Severus felt a pang of . . . something. He knew for a fact that he and Harry would never be like that no matter how much they worked at their relationship. He shook his head as if to rid himself of the thought and apparated with Draco back to his house.

Narcissa was sitting at the kitchen table with Lily nowhere in sight. As they entered, she was pushing back the sleeve of her robe to look at a silver wristwatch which Severus had no doubt was the real thing. She looked up as they entered and frowned at her son's disheveled appearance. Severus said, by way of explanation, "The boys got into a fight. Draco has not been so kind as to give the reason for attempting to pummel my stepson."

She didn't seem particularly concerned and said rather breezily, "Well, boys will be boys."

Severus hated that particular phrase which he heard a lot from pureblood families trying to excuse the bad behavior of their sons. Personally, he felt that Draco deserved better than to have the expectations for him continually lowered. Not wanting to get into it with Narcissa, however, he didn't say anything.

Hearing his voice, Lily had appeared again from upstairs. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen and said, "Aren't you missing one?"

"He's with Sirius. I'm going to go fetch him right now. The boys got into a bit of a fight and it seemed prudent to separate them."

Narcissa cut in, saying, "We really must be going. Lily, just think about what I said."

With that she stood up and grasped her son's hand and they diapparated. Severus asked Lily, "What was that all about?"

Lily shook her head and said, "We'll talk about it later. Do you want to go get Harry? Was he alright?"

"Yes, he was fine. A bit of a bruise but other than that he seemed like he just needed a little air. I'll be back soon."

Severus apparated around the corner from Sirius' building and walked the block to get there. He pushed the buzzer next to the door. The door instantly clicked, indicating that it was open, and Severus supposed that they must have been waiting for him. He took the elevator up to Sirius' floor and found the door already cracked open. He entered the flat and Sirius waved him into the kitchen. He sighed, craning his head to see where Harry was, and reluctantly followed the other man. While they had come a long way toward having something of an understanding, the peace was largely dependent on limited interaction other than when it was necessary for Harry's wellbeing.

When they were both in the kitchen, Sirius said, "Well, did Draco tell you what the fight was about?"

"No," Severus said, "He wasn't speaking to me. He gets like that when he's punished. Why? Did Harry fill you in on the details?"

"Yes," Sirius was silent for a moment and then said, "He remembers who attacked him."

"Just now?" Severus asked, frowning.

"No, last night."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't he tell us?"

"He was under the impression you wouldn't believe him."

"That's ridiculous. Of course I would believe him."

"Apparently it was your good buddy Lucius."

Honestly, this statement did require Severus to suspend his disbelief. It didn't make sense that the man would hurt Harry. While there was certainly distance between Lily and the Malfoys, they had always been quite courteous to Harry. The child would not have any reason to lie, though. So much for the trust that Rebecca was hoping to build between them.

"Where is he?"

Sirius said, "In the living room. Snape? He really needs you to be supportive about this."

Severus walked into the living room where he found the boy sitting in one of the armchairs. He looked up when his stepfather entered and said, "Did Sirius tell you?"

"Yes . . ."

"I'm really sorry that it was your friend," Harry said with unnerving sincerity. It was such an outrageous statement that Severus would have laughed had the situation not been so serious. Did the child really think he would blame him for something that was so utterly beyond his control? Did Severus really take his side that rarely?

"Harry, if still alive, I assure you that he would no longer be my friend. _I_ am sorry that I put you in danger by allowing him to be near you." Harry just looked away and Severus wondered if he should pat the boy's arm or something. Instead, he said, "We should go back home before you mother gets worried. I want to put some salve on that bruise, too. Does it hurt?"

Harry shrugged, "Not much."

Severus helped Harry up and nodded to Sirius who had apparently been watching the exchange with a rather unreadable expression. They apparated to the house where they found Lily picking up in the living room. She looked up when she heard the pop and smiled, "You both are so messy. Sev, you're getting nearly as bad as Harry."

Neither of them smiled back at her and her own smile fell, "What's wrong?"

Severus said as lightly as possible, "I need to talk to you."

He climbed the stairs and Lily followed him. When they were in the bedroom, she said, "Severus, what's wrong? You're worrying me."

"Harry remembered who attacked him on the path to Hogsmede. It was Lucius Malfoy. He hadn't said anything because he thought I wouldn't believe him which is . . . definitely something I think we'll have to discuss with Rebecca," he said bluntly.

Lily stared at him and then looked away. She sat down on the bed and shook her head at him, "Do you know what's funny? I was never afraid of you. Even when you were a deatheater with this horrible reputation and people said you had done all of these despicable things. I just had it in my mind that you would never hurt me. The thing I forgot was that when we were friends at Hogwarts you frequently hurt me; every single time you chose Slytherins and a misguided search for power over me and our friendship."

Severus opened his mouth to protest - because he felt that it was rather low to bring up his days as a deatheaters which she _knew_ was a low blow and something he was sensitive about to this day - but she cut him off, "Let me finish. And it seems that since I let you get close to me again, you continue to hurt me and worse to hurt my son or at very least put him in harm's way because you can't bear to cut ties with your past."

"Well, I am _sorry_ that I haven't provided you with the perfect marriage you had with James," Severus said hotly.

"It wasn't perfect, Severus, but at least I felt like we were always on the same side! At least I could _trust_ that he had our best interests at heart."

Lily might have slapped him straight across the face for the effect that her words had. He said sharply, "You know, I never asked for this responsibility. I never _asked_ to be charged with taking care of you and your son."

"You did, though," Lily was raising her voice now, "You might not have known what you were getting yourself into, but the moment you strolled into my hospital room the night after my life was turned upside down with my child in your arms who you had apparently taken care of for the night, you asked to get involved!"

"Well, believe me; I had no idea what a burden it would end up being!" Severus regretted the words the minute they left his mouth. He hoped he had not spoken loudly enough that Harry might have heard. He was ashamed that he had let himself react so badly but the mention of the later Potter senior still had the ability to put him on edge. Lily looked stunned, but not for long.

"I think," she said slowly, "that maybe you should go back to work. I'm not working right now so I'm more than capable of taking care of Harry myself. I need some time to think and I can't really do that with you here."

"That's what you want?"

"That's what I want."

"Fine."

Severus left the bedroom, slamming the door behind him and walked down the steps. He planned to make a quick getaway but was stopped by a voice from the living room, "Snape?"

He sighed with defeat and considered keeping going but he had recently came to the conclusion that he should try to be nicer to Harry because it was the right thing to do and not because he was trying to please his wife. He said, "What is it, Harry?"

"You and Mum are fighting?"

"We had an argument," he confirmed.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Hogwarts. I'm horribly behind anyway and I know Minerva must be exhausted dealing with two houses. It's probably for the best."

Harry sighed and drew his feet up to his chest. Severus wondered again if the boy had heard what he had said. The child simply said, however, "There was another part of my memory but I don't think it could be right. I think the memory must be distorted somehow."

"What else did you remember?"

"Um, it seems like in my memory that Professor Quirrel was there. But that can't be," Harry looked at him for confirmation.

Well, the boy was just full of surprises. Severus told him, "I'll look into it."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Like promised, Severus immediately met with the headmaster who warmly welcomed him back until he saw how serious the potions master was. He expressed his concerns about the fact that Harry believed Quirrel was involved in the attack. Dumbledore was a bit skeptical and didn't want to confront one of his teachers with such an accusation unless they were sure. Severus was adamant that they should take Harry's claim very seriously. Never on their side, indeed, he thought bitterly.

Eventually, the headmaster agreed to go speak with Quirrel and asked Severus if he would like to come along. Severus declined and suggested that perhaps he should take Minerva. He felt a tiny bit bad that he kept piling responsibilities on the woman but he was so tired. He gratefully escaped to his chambers where he pulled a potion he had created in his deatheater days that was basically a fusion of a sleeping potion and the dreamless sleep potion. Very potent and powerful and it almost guaranteed a good night's sleep though the next day was usually quite hazy. He had relied on them heavily back then.

He took it and went to lie down. Staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the potion to kick in and knock him out, he couldn't help but think about his situation. In a way, Lily was right. Severus had hurt both of them by the sheer fact that he himself wasn't good at having healthy relationships with people. Maybe he was just one of those people who was meant to be alone. Maybe he was being selfish in pursuing these relationships. All those years that Lily could have been trying to find someone who was actually capable of making her happy and loving her son.

That was his last thought before he fell asleep.

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

When Severus woke up, he felt someone lying next to him. He sat up too quickly, causing him to get dizzy from the aftereffects of his potion. It was Lily; fully dressed and curled up on his bed. It seemed improbable and he wondered if maybe he had wrongly estimated the dosage of that potion and was now suffering from hallucinations. He reached over and touched her shoulder which was quite solid and at the touch she opened her eyes groggily and looked up at him.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, "Where's Harry?"

"Sirius came to get him late in the afternoon so that they could go catch a movie. I told him that was fine as long as it was nothing violent or scary. Then Dumbledore came to get me so we could talk and I told Sirius just to keep him tonight." They were both silent for a moment and then Lily added, "I tried to come get you but you were _really_ out. What did you take?"

"Just something to help me sleep."

"Sev," she said softly, "I'm really sorry about everything I said."

Severus changed the subject, "What happened with Quirrel? What did Dumbledore have to say?"

Lily shifted in the bed to face him more fully, "Well . . . Quirrel apparently was involved in the attack. It was discovered that he has been working with You-Know-Who."

Severus blinked, "You-Know-Who is dead."

Lily looked so tired, "Dumbledore said he has a few theories but he didn't want to share them quite yet. He said that You-Know-Who actually attached himself to Quirrel. Minerva especially looked very shaken. They have him in containment. A very powerfully warded cell. It seems that You-Know-Who's magic is weak and he's mostly been fueling himself off of Quirrel."

Severus was horrified by the prospect that the man - no that _creature_ - could still exist in any manner. He said, "Surely they mean to destroy him."

Lily sighed, "You would think so. Dumbledore is concerned, however, that since killing him didn't work the _first_ time, that it might be ineffective the second time. And if he found another way to come back, he would not be so careless and we might not know until too late. Worse, he thinks that Harry somehow has something to do with it. A prophecy he told me about that said somehow Harry is supposed to be the match of You-Know-Who. Which is ridiculous because Harry is a little boy."

This was a lot in information to take in and Severus closed his eyes as he tried to think. Lily, apparently thinking he might have fallen asleep, prompted, "Severus?"

Tiredly, he said, "What do you want from me, Lily?"

He could practically see her pursing her lips in disapproval even with his eyes closed. She said, "I want - Severus, look at me - I don't want Harry involved with any of this which I informed Dumbledore of. Whatever some prophecy says, he _will_ have a normal childhood. Even if I have to take him away from here. I gave Dumbledore fair warning that if he so much as mentions any of this to him that I will pull him out of Hogwarts so fast it will make his head spin. I don't believe this family owes the wizarding world _anything_ else. I want you to say that you're on the same page as me. And if Dumbledore asks you to do any work for him outside of teaching that you'll say no."

A beat of silence and Severus said evasively, "Dumbledore has done a lot for me."

"Right," Lily said pointedly, "but he's not your family."

"Are we back to being a family now? I thought you needed time to think. I thought I couldn't be trusted."

"We had an argument, Sev. We never stopped being family. And I said I was sorry."

"_I've_ been thinking Lily. I don't think some time apart would be a terrible idea. Things have been going on like this for a while. I've just realized how many problems we really have."

"So your solution to run away?" He eyes flashed in the dim light of the room.

"My solution is to give both of us a chance to breathe and think about what we really want."

"Fine," she said icily, standing up out of the bed, "Take all the time you need, Severus. While, I'm sure, that we're just supposed to wait until you make up your mind whether you want us or not."

SSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

Severus had been teaching for about a week and a half. He was playing major catch up to figure out where Minerva had gotten in the lesson plan and finishing grading the work that had been done lately. It was a relief to be so busy and not have to dwell on his domestic problems. He had just enough time to think about it, however, to put him in a particularly foul mood. This week alone he had made no less than five students cry, two of them from his own house.

It was a Monday and he was grading sixth year essays while simultaneously trying to go over his lesson plan for today's first year class. The door to the classroom opened and he looked up to give them a particularly vicious scowl. His expression changed entirely when he saw that it was Harry, wearing his school uniform and carrying an armful of books.

"You're back," Severus said, slightly stunned.

"Yeah. Rebecca said that it was about time and besides, Professor McGonagall said that if I missed much more I stood a good chance of being held back a year."

"Your mother didn't write me and tell me you'd be coming back. You think _someone_ might have told me considering I'm your head of house," he said a bit angrily. Though he supposed Dumbledore had assumed that Lily would have told him. Then, to Harry, he said, "You're fifteen minutes early for class."

"I know," Harry said, looking slightly awkward. "I wanted to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Well, er, I just wanted to say that if you and Mum made up and things went back to normal, I would be _really_ good." Harry looked at him furtively for a reaction. "I mean, I would follow all of your rules. Even the ones that I think are stupid. I wouldn't even argue with you."

This was all said in a rush and he hated the hopeful look the child was giving him. Severus sighed and ran a hand over his face, "Harry, it's not about that. It's not about _you_."

"Right," Harry said, apparently unconvinced, "I just wanted you to know that anyway."


	12. Chapter 12

Lily blinked as a ray of sunshine fell directly across her eyes through the not entirely shut blinds in her sons room. For a moment she felt disoriented and frowned up at a poster of a Quiddich Player who frowned back at her in earnest. Then she remembered that she had passed out here her first evening home with both Harry and Severus away at Hogwarts. She had been unable to bring herself to sleep in their bedrooms where their fights circled endlessly in her head as she tried to fall asleep.

Instead she had decided to torture herself by sitting in her son's room with a wedding album from both her weddings spread out before her. She was looking for some evidence of her apparent mistake in marrying Severus. She had analyzed her face in the photographs over several glasses of wine trying to find some tell that suggested she had foreseen the eventual destruction of all the relationships in her life. It was difficult to tell, however, because she had been such a different person when she married Severus than when she had married James.

She hadn't felt for Severus quite the way that she had felt for James. With James it had been such an intense romantic love; the type that teenage girls dreamed of and really she had been little more than that when they decided to get married. With Severus, well, she had loved him in the comfortable way she had when they had been younger but it had been relief rather than excitement that she felt in the days leading up to their walk down the aisle.

Those had been such dark days after she had woken up in the hospital to discover herself a widow and the war that had defined most of her marriage over. She had lived with such an intense fear for months over that of her son being hurt or herself falling to harm. The situation had been all the worse as she had not been allowed to cope in peace but experienced the constant demand of the public for her to relive that horrible night. Constant requests for interviews and for her to meet with people whose lives she had supposedly changed in a moment she could not (and didn't care to) remember.

As weeks had turned into months she had begun to fear that she would be unable to take care of her son so paralyzing was her terror that every person was out to get them. At this point people began to express their 'concern' for her and rumors had begun to spread. The only person who she had found herself able to talk to was Severus because he understood. He was one of the few people in those days who was not celebrating the triumph of good over evil but mourning the terrible price that had come attached. He had seen and done terrible things and he understood all about sacrifice.

Truth be told, she knew at the time he still had feelings for her. She had known for a long time when they were younger that he had a crush on her and he still looked at her in the same admiring way even as she was falling apart and a tearful mess. He had been such a dependable source of comfort and support after the war that forgiving him for his actions during it was easier than many people seemed able to imagine.

She snapped both books closed and looked back up at the grumpy looking Quiddich player in the poster. The problem she faced was that when there was only one person who truly understood what you had been through it was difficult to get objective advice from anyone else.

Harry walked through the dark corridors back toward the Slytherin Common Room even though he was uncertain what he would do once he got there as he had been avoiding sleeping in his dorm room. Draco had been intent on making his life miserable since he returned to school largely by turning the other Slytherins in his year against him. Harry had been avoiding them not because he was so much worried about his newfound popularity but because he didn't have the energy for a confrontation with Draco. He had been so tired since returning to school and unable to get himself excited about what had been so new not that long ago.

He spent enough time with Ron and Neville so that teachers wouldn't worry too much and spent the rest of the time wandering the castle aimlessly and hiding in a secluded corner of the library flipping through obscure books with goofy looking illustrations of spells. Hermione had made it on his list of people to avoid simply because of her insistence on questioning his well being which was the reason he had insisted on coming back to school in the first place to get away from his mother.

Currently he was heading back from the detention he had spent with Hagrid this evening looking idly at the bite mark he had obtained on his left hand from feeding one of Hagrid's 'harmless' creatures he was caring for. Hagrid had assured him it would heal up right quick ('not much more than a scratch, really') but the little bit of green ooze suggested that maybe he should go see Madame Pomfrey in the morning.

Even this hadn't worked out the way it was supposed to though he would deny that he had actually planned it. It was more of an impulsive decision that had evolved into a failed plan. He had went to class that morning and the fact that Snape was ignoring him (well, not even so much ignoring him as treating him like any student) had filled him with a rage that very little else the man had ever done had accomplished. He had made the impulsive decision to add a handful of mixed ingredients on his work desk to his cauldron to garner a little attention.

The display had been quite impressive.

Following an explosion that would have made Neville proud he indeed did get the attention of his stepfather who after ordering a few of the students who had not yet learned to hit the floor when a cauldron started making that noise to the hospital wing had strode to Harry's desk, grabbed him by the collar of this robe, and dragged him into the hallway.

"Explain yourself."

Harry had only seen the man this angry and handful of times and his first instinct was to apologize and make an excuse for what had happened. Then he remembered that he was angry too. Trying to keep the shaking rage out of his own voice, he said, "I wanted to see what happened. Though I don't think I need to explain myself to you, or at least I won't soon, right?"

Snape's entire face seemed to work to find the appropriate emotion in a display that would have been comical if not for the circumstances but finally settled into a cool mask, "Detention, Mr. Potter, and you would do well to remember that I am, and will be for the next seven years assuming you don't manage to get yourself expelled, your teacher."

That had been the end of it and Harry had felt a slight rush of victory because Snape would have to deal with him that night but he had received a note at lunch instructing him to meet Hagrid for detention which he had suffered through sullenly though Hagrid didn't seem to notice his bad attitude in the way that the teachers would.

He was paying so much attention to his hand that he nearly ran directly into someone as he approached the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. The young man he almost ran into held his hands out to avoid the collision and Harry looked up and recognized his roommate Blaise Zabini.

"Sorry. What are you doing out here at this hour? Most people don't break curfew just to stand outside the common room door," Harry gave a small uncertain smile, hoping to stick with pleasantries and avoid any confrontation.

"I was waiting for you," he said shortly, in his usual brusque way.

"Why?" Harry asked suspiciously. "Look, whatever Malfoy said -."

"Not about that," Zabini looked slightly amused, "I have known Draco long enough to know when he is angry he has a tendency to exaggerate when he is angry and you very probably are not evil incarnate."

"Oh," Harry said, relaxing only a little, "What did you want to talk about then?"

"I was just wondering how you are doing."

"Fine," Harry snapped, annoyed that people kept asking him that.

"Good," there was an awkward pause and then the other boy continued, "My mum has been married a lot."

"Oh," Harry said again, feeling his temper diffuse a little. "Did you ever like any of her husbands?"

"Some of them," Zabini shrugged, "But I learned pretty early not to get too attached. I think she was looking for perfect and that just doesn't exist."

"Heavy handed metaphor?"

Zabini smiled slightly and said, "Sorry, it's late, and that's all I've got. I just always thought it would be better if she would stay with one even if it wasn't someone I liked a whole lot. Uncertainty is the worst."

"Yeah, I guess I would agree with that. I just don't see how things are going to be able to work themselves out."

"Well, maybe sometimes it's not for use to know."

"You mean like God or something," Harry said dubiously. Most people in the wizarding world were firmly agnostic with a belief that there must be something but they didn't know what that was.

"Or something," Zabini replied with a slight smile, turning back toward the common room.

Severus sighed leaned back in his desk chair, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He stood up and made his way over to his potion stores and opened the cabinet to remove one of his reserves of Wolfsbane Potion. For the first time in nearly a decade, he'd messed up in the making of a complex potion and would now be behind a month. Not to mention the waste of the very expensive ingredients.

There was a timid knock on the door of his office and he rolled his eyes thinking that most of his students had more confidence when interrupting him than that wolf. He sat the potion on the desk and opened the door, not bothering to look at the other man as he returned to his desk. Unceremoniously and with a look he hoped discouraged any conversation he said, "There."

"Thanks," Lupin offered a smile and retrieved the vial, opening it and making a slight face at the smell which apparently had not been easy to get used to especially with his increased sense of smell. He tipped back the vial and swallowed the entire contents, actually gagging a little when he finished.

"I will have to put you down if you throw that up, Lupin. I don't have anymore."

"Sorry. Everything they can do with potions and they can't make them taste better. Even the Muggles have figured that out by now. Why can't they make potions that taste like bubble gum?" Severus stared at the other man blankly and he continued, "Like the cough syrups? For kids? That Muggles have?"

"Most potion masters assume that patrons will be grateful enough for the effects to forgive to poor flavor," Severus commented coldly.

"I am grateful, of course. As you well know," A pause in which Lupin fished a miniature chocolate bar out of his robes presumably to help with the taste. He also removed a square envelope and sat it on the desk, "Tonks asked me to give you that."

Severus picked up the envelope and opened it to reveal an intricately designed wedding invitation surprisingly old-fashioned for the bride. He raised his eyebrows at Lupin and said, "This is Andromeda's doing, I suppose."

"They compromised," Lupin commented simply.

"I've never known the Blacks to be the compromising sorts of people."

"Things change. Andromeda is more excited about being a grandmother than she is displeased about having me as a son-in-law it turns out."

Severus flipped open the invitation and said idly, "Ah, that would explain your own change of heart of the timing of the wedding."

Lupin seemed to bristle ever so slightly and said, "I always intended to marry her. It was just a matter of when."

Severus made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and sat the invitation down, "I'm sure you'll understand that I'm not particularly in the mood for a wedding."

"I know this may not have occurred to you but the wedding isn't about you." Lupin said, "As Tonks has reminded me repeatedly, it's not even about me. You were her favorite teacher and she would like for you to come. For some crazy reason, she seems to like you."

"Listen to me, Lupin -."

The werewolf continued as though he had not heard him, "And if you're worried about Lily, it's not for a couple of months and I assume that you'll be through punishing her by then."

"I'm not punishing anyone," Severus said sharply.

"No? You're not punishing her for the fact that she continued loving James after he died tragically young? And you've never punished Harry for being his son?"

"You have no right -."

"Snape, I'm not saying any of this in order to antagonize you. I have no desire to fight with you. I want to get home to my fiance and enjoy the time we have before this month's full moon. I am only saying this because I care about Lily and Harry and even you if only because you are such an important part of their lives. I think you are avoiding her because you know that she's going to be angry with you. But I think you need to consider how much crap she has taken from you over the years."

Severus pursed his lips, disliking as always the Lupin who seemed to come out around the full moon who was less willing to allow Severus to have the upper hand. He put the invitation in his desk and said, "We'll see what happens."


End file.
